Dissertation Digital Transformation Framework - Excellence of Things (EOT) For Business Excellence

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK: EXCELLENCE OF THINGS (EoT)
FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE
by
Syed Mahsud Ali
A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfilment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Business Administration
APOLLOS UNIVERSITY
January 2019
© 2019 by Syed, M., Ali
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business i
Administration, Apollos University
ABSTRACT
The entire digital ecosystem is disrupted due to disruptive innovation. Digital

Transformation (DT) is the way of enabling business with innovative technology to either
disrupt others in the ecosystem or protect digital firm itself from disruption. Digital firms
can either be failure or successful based on how they approach DT because DT is now at
the heart of the business model of a digital firm. In the 21st century, organizations
incline to the implementation of DT which is an exceptional means of achieving business
excellence (BE) to achieve outstanding quality. Inspired from IoT’s “of the things”
concept, DT based excellence framework, “EoT – Excellence of Things” can be
developed that also utilizes frameworks, platforms, services and best practices related to
BE for adding value in digital firms. Thus, this study explores a theoretical model of DT
based BE. Also, the meaning of EoT for digital firms and the components of DT based
BE is explored through an in-depth interview. Delphi method has been applied as a tool
for data collection from a panel of experts who are chosen from a different educational
and professional background. They are from several industries too. The responses
acquired from the open-ended questions are run by Nvivo application. The analysis
generated few ‘drivers’ that influence a digital firm to achieve EoT.
Moreover, based on EoT framework discussed in this thesis, there are three
enablers such as Corporate of Things (CoT), Lean of Things (LoT) and Data of Things
(DoT). As per the participants’ responses, the significant aspects of EoT that have to be
taken care off during implementation of EoT to add value to a digital firm are supportive
Organizational Culture (38%), Process Driven (23%), Strong Leadership (14%),
Employee Motivation (8%), Quality Management (6%) and Excepting Digital
Transformation (6%). However, other factors such as Management Commitment (2%)
and Transparency (3%) are also considered as aspects of EoT implementation. Finally,
the relationship of drivers, integration of three enablers is discussed elaborately. The
findings have implications in four principles of EoT framework. Lastly, an EoT
Reference Model (ERM) has been generated from the analysis. Other implications have
been discussed too.
Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business ii
DEDICATION
I wish to dedicate my dissertation to my father – Mr. Syed Mokbor Ali who
practically taught me the most precious virtuous of life, i.e. honesty and my mother Mrs.
Anwara Begum – who used to guide me throughout my student life.
Certainly, my beloved wife – Nargis Sultana - who enormously encouraged me to
complete the incomplete milestone of my life, i.e. doctorate program. That could be
incomplete without her natural support and encouragement. She also took extra burden
for our family and let me finish my dissertation.
Last but not least, my two charming daughters (Syeda Ramisa Tarannum Rumu
and Syeda Labiba Tabassum Reem) who have no clue about the doctorate program but
always gave me a chance to study and encouraged me to finish it!

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This challenging but exciting journey could be incomplete without the intensive
support of Apollos University Dissertation Committee – Dr. Kelly Nix, Dr. Scott Lamar
Eidson and Dr. William (Bill) Lambrecht. Moreover, Dr. Tareq M. Zayed – Lecturer,
General Education, Bangladesh Islamic University – who inspired and advised me
throughout the dissertation writing process.
Furthermore, I cannot but mention the names of my few friends, colleagues and former
colleagues who really encouraged me a lot. They are Mr. Mohammad Delwar
Chowdhury (Manager, IT at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, USA), Mr. Anamul
Haque (PhD Research Student at Padua University, Italy), Ms. Fahima Khanam (Senior
Manager, IT Governance at BRAC IT Services Limited, Bangladesh), Mr. Faisal Islam
(Business Pursuit Manager at VSO Bangladesh), Mr. Hasanul Murad (Deputy Manager,
IT at Incepta Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bangladesh), Mr. Istiaq Ahmad (IT Officer at
WFP Bangladesh), Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Amiri (IT Expert, Ministry of Mines and
Petroleum, Afghanistan) Mr. M Shohag Ahmed (Senior Audit Associate at KPMG
Bangladesh), S Mr. M Mahabubul Alam (CTO, Ara Tech, Bangladesh) and Mr.
Motashim Billah (InfoSec Specialist, Contessa Solutions & Consultants Limited,
Bangladesh).
I am honestly grateful to all of them for their outstanding cooperation.

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................i
DEDICATION.....................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................................iv
LIST OF TABLES..............................................................................................................ix
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................x
ABBREVIATION ............................................................................................................xiii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................1
Motivation behind Excellence in Digital Firms...................................................................3
Statement of the Problem.....................................................................................................5
Background of the Problem ...............................................................................................11
Conceptual Framework......................................................................................................12
Purpose of the Study ..........................................................................................................16
Significance of the Study ...................................................................................................16
Significance of the Study to Leadership ............................................................................17
Nature of the Study ............................................................................................................17
Research Questions............................................................................................................18
Definition of Terms............................................................................................................19
Assumptions.......................................................................................................................26
Limitations .........................................................................................................................27
Delimitations......................................................................................................................27
Scope of the Study .............................................................................................................27
Summary ............................................................................................................................28
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................30
History of Quality Management ........................................................................................30
Total Quality Management (TQM) – Foundation of BE Frameworks ..............................33
Origin of ‘Excellence of Things’: The Total Excellence...................................................35
Towards Digital Transformation (DT)...............................................................................37
Journey to Digital Transformation (DT)............................................................................37
Digitization or Digitalization .............................................................................................38
Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business v
Change or Transform .........................................................................................................39
Digital Disruption ..............................................................................................................41
Digital Cusotomers ............................................................................................................42
Digital Leaders...................................................................................................................42
Digtal Strategy ...................................................................................................................43
Digital Transformation Models..........................................................................................45
Digital Ecosystem ..............................................................................................................47
Digital Transformation – A pathway to Excellence ..........................................................48
Capabilities of Digital Transformation (DT) .....................................................................50
Mobile Technologies .........................................................................................................51
Big Data .............................................................................................................................51
Cloud Computing...............................................................................................................52
Internet of Things (IoT) .....................................................................................................53
Artificial Intelligence (AI) ................................................................................................54
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) ..................................................................................55
Blockchain........................................................................................................................55s
Digital Transformation (DT) for Business Excellence (BE) .............................................60
Adapting BE Frameworks for Digital Firms .....................................................................61
Deming Prize .....................................................................................................................63
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) ....................................................64
European Frameworks for Quality Management (EFQM)................................................65
Control Objective for Information and Related Technology: COBIT...............................66
How to Bring EoT for Digital Firms..................................................................................67
Enablers of EoT for Digital Firms .....................................................................................69
Corporate-Entrepreneurship of Things (CoT) in Details ...................................................70
Lean of Things (LoT) in Details ........................................................................................71
Data of Things (DoT) in Details ........................................................................................74
Integration among CoT, LoT, and DoT .............................................................................76
Capability Assessment Models for Digital Firms..............................................................77
Adapting COBIT for the Capability Assessment Model for Digital Transformation .......78
Implications of BE for EoT in Digital Firms .....................................................................81
Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business vi
Implications of COBIT for EoT in Digital Firms ..............................................................83
Summary ............................................................................................................................87
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..........................................................89
Research Design.................................................................................................................89
Appropriateness of Design.................................................................................................89
Feasibility of Design ..........................................................................................................90
Panel of Experts .................................................................................................................90
Sampling Frame of Participants.........................................................................................92
Informed Consent...............................................................................................................95
Confidentiality ...................................................................................................................95
Geographic Location..........................................................................................................95
Instrumentation ..................................................................................................................95
Data Collection ..................................................................................................................96
Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................97
Validity ..............................................................................................................................98
Summary ............................................................................................................................98
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS, ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ............................................99
Situation Assessment .........................................................................................................99
Key Factors ........................................................................................................................99
Events...............................................................................................................................100
Findings ...........................................................................................................................100
Meaning of EoT in the Context of Digital Firm ..............................................................101
Driver of Digital Firms to Accept EoT ............................................................................105
EoT Enablers in Digital Firms .........................................................................................109
CoT – Corporate of Things. .............................................................................................109
LoT – Lean of Things. .....................................................................................................112
DoT – Data of Things. .....................................................................................................116
Aspects of EoT in Regard to Add Value to the Business of Digital Firms .....................120
Summary ..........................................................................................................................124
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ........................................................................................125
Drivers for Digital firms to accept EoT ...........................................................................126
Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business vii
EoT Enablers....................................................................................................................126
COT – Corporate of Things .............................................................................................127
LoT – Lean of Things ......................................................................................................127
DoT – Data of Things ......................................................................................................128
Excellence of Things (EoT) Framework..........................................................................128
Principles of EoT Framework..........................................................................................133
Principle-1: People-oriented ............................................................................................134
Principle-2: Process-driven..............................................................................................134
Principle-3: Technology-passionate.................................................................................135
Principle-4: Holistic .........................................................................................................135
EoT Reference Model - ERM ..........................................................................................136
Tailor Framework (Strategic, CoT) .................................................................................138
Ensure Governance (Strategic, CoT) ...............................................................................138
Ensure Transparency (Strategic, CoT).............................................................................138
Lead Entrepreneurship (Tactical, CoT) ...........................................................................139
Synergize Teams (Tactical, CoT) ....................................................................................139
Establish Creative and Innovative Culture (Tactical, CoT).............................................140
Satisfy Customers (Operation, CoT)................................................................................141
Improve CSR- Corporate Social Responsibility (Operation, CoT) .................................141
Focus on Bottom Line (Operation, CoT).........................................................................142
Ensure Zero Defect (Strategic, LoT) ...............................................................................142
Engage Employees (Tactical, LoT) .................................................................................143
Reduce Waste (Operational, LoT) ...................................................................................144
Ensure Fact-based Decision Making (Strategic, DoT) ....................................................145
Utilize Existing Resources (Tactical, DoT) .....................................................................145
Manage Agility (Operational, DoT) ................................................................................146
Manage Information (Operational, DoT).........................................................................146
Manage Performance (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT)........................................................147
Manage Compliance (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT).........................................................148
Manage Internal Controls (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT) .................................................148
Manage Feedback Culture (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT)................................................149
Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business viii
Mapping EoT Reference Model with BE and COBIT Components ...............................150
EoT Capability Assessment Model (ECAM) ..................................................................150
Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver - ‘LEAD’ Cycle................................................................153
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................157
Recommendations for Future Research ...........................................................................158
Suggested Questions ........................................................................................................158
Interesting Hypotheses for Future Research ....................................................................159
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................160
APPENDIX A: TABLES AND FIGURES .....................................................................183
APPENDIX B: Delphi Questionnaire to Experts - Round2 ............................................221
APPENDIX C: Delphi Questionnaire with feedback of Experts - Round3.....................231
APPENDIX D: REVIEWED Delphi FINAL Questionnaire - Round4...........................261
APPENDIX E: FINAL Questionnaire with answer.........................................................272
APPENDIX F: INFORMED CONSENT FORM (To Expert Panel) ..............................320
APPENDIX G: INFORMED CONSENT FORM (To Participants) ...............................322
Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Analog to Digital Changes...................................................................................39
Table 2: Core Theme of BE frameworks with EoT’s enablers:.........................................81
Table 3: COBIT framework with EoT’s enablers..............................................................84
Table 4: EoT in digital firm .............................................................................................104
Table 5: BE frameworks, COBIT, CoT, LoT and DoT Mapping....................................150
Table 6: Detail of Tailor Transformative Focus Area .....................................................156

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy theory approach in Digital Transformation .........................3
Figure 2: Berman’s Digital Transformation Paths.............................................................10
Figure 3: Percent of industries-wise award winners in Demine Prize, Baldrige & EFQM .7
Figure 4: Core BE Frameworks' Number of Award Winners .............................................7
Figure 5: Comparison of core BE Frameworks, COBIT and EoT enablers ........................8
Figure 6: Deming’s Chain Reaction (Ionica et al., 2010) ..................................................32
Figure 7: Digital Transformation Journey (Bongiorno et al., 2018)..................................38
Figure 8: Porter’s Digital Value Chain ..............................................................................15
Figure 9: Gartner Hype Cycle 2018...................................................................................44
Figure 10: Wade’s Categories of Digital Business Transformation Models .....................46
Figure 11: Gartner’s Rebalancing Technology Portfolio...................................................49
Figure 12: Information value Cycle throughout an Organization (Ladley, 2010).............57
Figure 13: Bytheway’s Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK) ..........58
Figure 14: Ironic’s Business Excellence Transformation....................................................9
Figure 15: McKensey’s Digitalization and Productivity ...................................................71
Figure 16: KPMG’s Key IT Capabilities for BT ...............................................................76
Figure 17: Digital Capability and Maturity of MIT and Deloitte ......................................78
Figure 18: Education Level of Panel .................................................................................91
Figure 19: Discipline of Panel ...........................................................................................91
Figure 20: Position of the Panel.........................................................................................92
Figure 21: Industry of the Panel.........................................................................................92
Figure 22: Education Level of Participants .......................................................................93

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business xi
Figure 23: Discipline of Participants .................................................................................93
Figure 24: Position of the Participants...............................................................................94
Figure 25: Industry of the Participants...............................................................................94
Figure 26: Meaning of Digital Firm in Word Cloud........................................................102
Figure 27: Elements of Digital firms ...............................................................................102
Figure 28: Utilization of Business Applications in Digital Firms ...................................103
Figure 29: Drivers of EoT in Word Cloud.......................................................................107
Figure 30: Drivers of EoT................................................................................................107
Figure 31: Relationship of EoT Drivers and Enablers.....................................................109
Figure 32: Transformative Focus areas of CoT in Word Cloud ......................................110
Figure 33: Elements of CoT.............................................................................................111
Figure 34: Relationship of CoT Elements .......................................................................112
Figure 35: Elements of LoT in Word Cloud....................................................................114
Figure 36: Elements of LoT.............................................................................................114
Figure 37: Relationship of LoT Elements........................................................................116
Figure 38: Elements of DoT in Word Cloud ...................................................................118
Figure 39: Elements of DoT ............................................................................................118
Figure 40: Relationship of DoT Elements .......................................................................120
Figure 41: Aspects of EoT Implementation in Word Cloud............................................122
Figure 42: Aspects of EoT Implementation.....................................................................123
Figure 43: Relationship of Drivers, Enablers and their output ........................................124
Figure 44: Digital Transformation based BE framework - EoT ......................................130
Figure 45: Principles of EoT............................................................................................133

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business xii
Figure 46: EoT Reference Model ....................................................................................137
Figure 47: EoT Capability Assessment Model - ECAM .................................................152
Figure 48: Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver Cycle...............................................................155
Figure 49: Detailed LEAD Cycle Stages .........................................................................156

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . . Dissertation - Doctorate of Business xiii
ABBREVIATION
AI : Artificial Intelligence
BE : Business Excellence
BEM : Business Excellence Management
BI : Business Intelligence
BPM : Business Process Management
COBIT: Control Objective for Information and Related Technology
CoT : Corporate-Entrepreneurship of Things
DT : Digital Transformation
DoT : Data of Things
ECAM : EoT Capability Assessment Model
EIM : Enterprise Information Management
ERM : EoT Reference Model
EoT : Excellence of Things
IM : Information Management
IoT : Internet of Things
ISACA: Information Systems Audit and Control Association
ISO : International Organization for Standardisation
LoT : Lean of Things
RPA : Robotic Process Automation
SPICE : Software Process Improvement and Capability determination
TFA : Transformative Focus Area

Excellence Of Things (EoT). . 1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
In the 21st century, excellence is extremely desired and valued in business due to
high competition in the marketplace, disruptive innovation, and ever-changing customer
experience. Disruptive innovation forms a new market and value network that eventually
threatens the present market and value network and replaces earlier technology.
Therefore, in order to achieve excellence, disruptive innovations are made to adapt to the
dynamics of the contemporary environment (Mihić, Umihanić, & Fazlović, 2015).
Excellence brings power and productivity (Peters, 2001). Excellence does not come all
of a sudden instead it is a continuous process toward achieving a ‘state or quality of
excelling’ (Ionica, Baleanu, Edelhauser, & Irimie, 2010, p.125). In order to achieve
outstanding quality, organizations incline to the implementation and the certification of
one or more models of management systems (Dinu, 2017).
In the era of digitalization, business firms accomplish excellence by enabling
technology for business, i.e., by Digital Transformation (DT). Eighty-seven percent (
87%) of the business leaders’ top priority is a digital transformation for business
excellence because of ease of interconnection and access to capabilities, resources and
talent anytime anywhere (Gartner, 2018b). Moreover, DT utilizes people, process and
technology for gathering and sharing information; making a data-driven decision;
automating the process to remove human-errors; and increasing accuracy, speed, and
reliability of business processes (Matthews, 2017). Thus, DT is also one of the key
means of changing the way of achieving business excellence (Bongiorno, Rizzo, & Vaia,
2018). However, a partially or entirely digitally transformed organization can be called
‘digital firm’ that may have the best technologies such as mobile technologies, Big Data,
cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchains and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
but these firms may not get Business Excellence (BE) awards.
Nevertheless, some digital firms need attention regarding achieving excellence
because digital firms have distinct organizational nature. Perhaps, digital firms need
certain accepted standard frameworks with features, different from traditional standards
and generic frameworks. Parallel efforts to achieve excellence in digital firms will be
helpful to overcome considerable challenges in business performance and disruptive
innovation. It is because, not only digital firms but also the total business is an industry
which is perhaps the ever most changing with ever-increasing global competitiveness,
technological improvement, and changing regulatory systems (Smith, Blakeslee, &
Koonce, 2002). Despite the fact, there are some business excellence frameworks and
customer satisfaction survey-based management approach such as TQM, Baldrige,
EFQM. Accordingly, this study covers DT based business excellence (BE) framework
for digital firms.
A digital firm is a partially or fully digitally transformed profit or not-for-profit
organization that manages its significant business process and relationship with its
stakeholders through digital means (Laudon & Laudon, 2013). It does not mean that a
digital firm is IT firms or an IT hardware manufacturing firms or any software
development firms. Any firm may be called the digital firm that is digitally enabled, and
all business assets are partially or fully managing in digital means. It is imperative to
mention that a fully transformed digital firm has fewer challenges to move towards BE
compared to partially transformed digital firms.

Nevertheless, one of the advantages of a digital firm is that it can make critical
business decisions at any time and anywhere in the firm. It also senses and responses the
market flexibly and quickly. A digital firm also utilizes the internet as one of their
essential tools. Porter (2001) also supports the usages and integration of modern internet
facilities to boost a firm’s capability to produce unique products or services — that
finally adds value to the business by creating a competitive advantage.
Motivation behind Excellence in Digital Firms
Maslow’s hierarchy theory may help to understand better the reasons for
introducing DT to Business Excellence because Maslow’s hierarchy explains the
motivations hierarchically behind human needs (Maslow, 1943). Similarly, the digital
motivation of a digital firm can be viewed hierarchically. An organization may proceed
to the highest level, one after another to the top level of EIM. According to the theory of
Maslow’s hierarchy, the following Figure-1 has been drawn covering its five levels of
motivation. The figure-1 shows five levels starting at basic computing, secure
computing, IT Management, Enterprise IT Management, and EIM.
EIM
Enterprise IT
Management
IT Management
Secured Computing
Basic Computing
Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy theory approach in Digital Transformation

Basic computing – At this level, organizations only focus on basic computing
such as word processing, spreadsheet, email, and internet; and employees work very
isolatedly regarding IT.
Secured Computing – Organizations get involved in information and
communication technology; get aware of basic information security; and take necessary
measures like awareness to the end users on security, backup data, encrypted
communication.
ITM – IT Management – IT functions such as operation or support, capacity
planning, asset management, performance management, change management are
managed systematically; and IT function starts aligning its strategy with business
strategy.
Enterprise IT Management – Organizations’ senior management starts getting sort
of IT visibility, involving in IT management, and IT becomes part of management too.
IT functional managers start managing IT as an enterprise; and IT becomes more
structured and well managed too.
EIM – Enterprise Information Management – Organizations recognize
information as an intangible asset and EIM is considered as a top-most priority for
transforming business. One of Gartner report finds that 99% of the of top performers
agrees that IT is an essential enabler for business model change (Gartner, 2018a). At this
level, organizations also establish principle, policy, and procedures of information.
Organizations further define accountability; establish transparency; provide
confidentiality, integrity, and availability; define retention and disposition of information
asset. Organization-wide information awareness established too. At this stage,

information insight is gathered through Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things
(IoT) and robotics systems.
As BE can be achieved in few other ways, organizations may choose to achieve
BE based on digital transformation by considering information as one of the most vital
factors for them, and they continuously improve information in better, faster, and cheaper
ways. It is also imperative to mention that this study only emphasizes on the first level
(EIM) for DT. Till today, DT is being experimented in different organizations, and the
success rate is only 21% because of inability to experiment quickly, failure of change
management, utilization of legacy systems, risk aversion and organizational silos
(GENPACT, 2017). However, academicians, practitioners, and researchers are trying to
develop their particular models for DT because there is no international standard or
framework for DT like BE namely Demin Award, Baldrige and EFQM. On the grounds,
an open framework like EoT (Excellence of Things) may fulfill such requirements.
Statement of the Problem
Information Management (IM) is the lifeblood of any firms in the modern
business world. Business firms can either be a loser or a gainer by how they approach
and utilize IM because information provides insights to the decision-making body (Entin,
Freeman, Serfaty, & Cohen, 1997, p.565). However, the existing core BE frameworks
are very generic in nature ‘with various weaknesses such as extremely sophisticated
assessment criteria, excessive paperwork, cumbersome procedures, and a lack of focus in
practice’ (Dahlgaard, Chen, Jang, Banegas, & Dahlgaard-Park, 2013, p. 519). While DT
is a new phenomenon which has been discussed in the literature of the information
management systems (Laudon & Laudon, 2013) and virtually overlooked in all other
European and American BE frameworks. As a result, getting BE award for any digital
firms may be more stringent.
Conversely, the fact is that the latest core BE Framework namely EFQM was
developed in the 90s (Dodangeh, Yusuff, & Jassbi, 2011, p.6209) and the concept of the
digital firm was introduced in the same decade (Laudon & Laudon, 2013). It implies that
a BE framework may be applied in a digital firm with the help of DT frameworks.
Information is relevant because ‘information is the foundation of the business change’
(Bytheway, 2011, p.184). Several high-level IM frameworks help to reduce information
redundancy throughout the enterprise as well as add value to the business by realizing
benefit while optimizing risks and resources together.
One of the IM frameworks is Control Objective of Information & related
Technology that clearly outlines what happens downstream from the governance
structure and helps to design the critical measures to be used to monitor how effective the
business firm is achieving the defined goals (ISACA, 2018). Information System Audit
and Control Association (ISACA) has further extended this framework for information
management known as ‘COBIT5 for Enabling Information’ (Ali, 2014; ISACA, 2013).
However, COBIT is not initially designed as a BE framework. In these circumstances;
developing such a DT based BE framework for digital firms is very important. On the
grounds, this study opts to explore the aspects that require DT based BE called
‘Excellence of Things’ (EoT). EoT may have few enables, that assist EoT in practical
implementation, such as Corporate of Things (CoT), Lean of Things (LoT) and Data of
Things (DoT).
The existing core BE frameworks if implemented in any digital or non-digital
firms regardless of industries; however, digital firms will stay behind in the competition
because the core BE frameworks are not focusing intensively on DT. This same fact is
revealed in the following Figure-2 (Percent of industries-wise award winners) and
Figure-3 (Core BE Frameworks' Number of Award Winners) (Baldrige Performance
Excellence Program, 2015). Apart from Baldrige, there is some more research which
refers to potential weakness and limitations of each business excellence management
(BEM) framework (J. J. Dahlgaard et al., 2013). Both figures show that 168 companies
received such BE awards either from Deming, Baldrige or EFQM; but only 3% (5) of
them belongs to IT/telecom industries.
% of IT/ Telecom and other industries award winners

(2005-2015)
3%
97%
Other Industries IT/ Telecom Industy
Figure 2: Percent of industries-wise award winners in Demine Prize, Baldrige & EFQM
3 Famous BE Frameworks' # of Award Winners (2005-2015)
163 168
84 87
46 47
33 34
1 1 3 5
Deming Baldride EFQM Total

Other Industries IT/ Telecom Industy Total
Figure 3: Core BE Frameworks' Number of Award Winners
As there are three (3) core enablers in EoT, all of the common BE framework
along with COBIT can be compared with EoT’s enablers. The following Figure-4 shows
the comparison.
Core BE Frameworks' Points & EoT Enablers

75.6%
57.0%
49.0% 49.0% 46.5% 47.5%
33.0%
17.1%
7.3% 10.0%
4.5% 3.6%
CoT LoT DoT

% of Allocation as EoT
Deming Baldrige EFQM COBIT5
Figure 4: Comparison of core BE Frameworks, COBIT, and EoT enablers
The Figure-4 only depicts that the Core BE Frameworks emphasize very little on
DoT. There is only 3% to 7% of weight given to DoT though there are huge
dependencies on DoT or IT in a digital firm. It may also be noted that none of the BE
award authorities classified the companies as digital or non-digital, but they classified
award winners as per traditional industries. However, digital firms won a very negligible
number of BE awards, only 3%. Such a phenomenon could happen because of the
unfriendliness of existing core BE frameworks towards digital firms where digital firms
use digital means for strategic decision making, tactical activities, and day-to-day
operation management. So, digital firms shall highly emphasize on in DT even though
these achieve BE.
Moreover, DT may add value to the business due to enormous potential digital
disruption incumbents that are reshaping market faster than perhaps any force in history
(Bradley, Loucks, Maacaulay, Noronha, & Wade, 2015). The authors also argue that
25% of executives believe there are “high” barriers to digital disruption in their industries
and it is higher (37%) in oil and gas industries while 36% in financial services industries
(Bradley et al., 2015). According to PWC, among five key disruptors, the customers
(71%) are the at top-most due to their evolving needs based on innovative technologies
(PwC, 2017). Hence, DT can be the part of BE journey. Ionica et al. (2010) very briefly
show this journey of BE (Figure-6) where DT can be added as the last progression stage
(stage-7) in BE journey.
4. Total Quality
5. Total Quality 3. Quality

Management Practices in
(TQM) Japan
6. Quality Business 2. Statistical

Awards and
Excellence
Model
Excellence Quality Control
(SQC)
7. Digital
Business
1.Inspection
Transformatio
n
Figure 5: Ionica’s Business Excellence Transformation
Consequently, BE is initiated from Frederick W. Taylor’s ‘Inspection’ mechanism
consisting of measuring and examining products or services based on customers’
requirements; then Dr. Shewarts’ ‘Statistical Quality Control’ method focusing on testing
samples with statistical methods for detecting and controlling quality problems; then
‘Quality in Japan’ method introduced by Deming, Juran, and Feigenbaum emphasizing
on quality improvement and employee motivation; then Feigenbaum’s ‘Total Quality’
method involving organization-wide quality control from the top management to the
workers; and finally ‘Total Quality Management’ that includes high-level of quality
control and management to focus on customers, employees, continual improvement, and
integration of quality management into the total organization (BPIR, 2019). Moreover,
DT can also be part of quality history in the 21st century as DT assist in achieving BE by
enhancing business capabilities and product or service performance. However, there are
several paths to reach DT based BE. According to Berman, there are three paths of
moving towards DT as shown in the following figure (Figure-6) (Berman, 2012):
Figure 6: Berman’s Digital Transformation Paths
On the grounds, EoT can be one of the frameworks that strengthen BE
frameworks with the help of DT (Figure-5). It means EoT can also become a kind of BE
by reshaping business model and customer value proposition at the sometime (Figure-6).
EoT can be designed in such a way that it can be implemented in any digital firm
regardless of size, nature, complexity, and industry.
Background of the Problem
According to Management guru, Peter Drucker, there are seven basic assumptions
in principle of modern management (Drucker, 1999a). First three assumptions are related
to the theory of management while former ones are related to the practice of
management. These assumptions are as follows:
i) management is business management,

ii) there is—or there must be—ONE right organization structure,
iii) there is—or there must be—ONE right way to manage people,
iv) technologies, markets, and end-users are given,
v) management’s scope is legally defined,
vi) management is internally focused, and
vii) the economy as defined by national boundaries that is the “ecology” of enterprise and
management.
Drucker, (1999b) also argued that new paradigms such as disruptive innovations
are going to change such basic assumptions. Drucker further emphasized that
information is the new “basic resource” and it is entirely different from any other
commodities. Information does not fall into the ‘scarcity theorem of economics’ rather
falls into an ‘abundance theorem’. Morabito (2015) also supports that and focused on the
growth of information around the world; and quoted that:
Wal-Mart, one of the retail giants in the USA, manages more than a
million of customer transactions per hour that creates databases of
approximately 2.5 petabytes — roughly 167 times of all books in
America's Library of Congress. Similarly, Facebook, a social
networking website, is having forty-billion of pictures. In other words;
information is growing two-fold every year that is more than Moore’s
law of transistors (Morabito, 2015)
On the grounds, it is not a concern of good or bad of such a tremendous growth of
information rather it is a challenge of utilizing information and gaining business insights
through the information. Drucker, (1999b) emphasized that it is the right time to focus
on ‘I’ (information) in IT (i.e., Information Technology). Smallwood (2014) supported
Drucker and arguing that quality information is the key to improved business insights that
can be achieved by leveraging DT. Smallwood (2014) further argued that DT improves
management decision-making capabilities; supports better customer service that, in turn,
impact customer retention; and provides a sustainable competitive advantage in the long-
run.
As information is one of the most valuable intangible assets of the business, all
business functions along with IT functions of a digital firm needs to come together to
digitally transform the business by ensuring ownership, accountability, uniformity,
accuracy and semantic consistency of information (Weathington, 2010). Therefore,
getting an insight into information, managing enterprise-wide information, and
developing DT based BE are challenged by the 21st century’s information era.
Conceptual Framework
There are some effective methods for enhancing management process such as
Total Quality Management (TQM), Business Excellence Models (BEM), Business
Process Reengineering (BPR), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Organizational
Change Management (OCM) (J. J. Dahlgaard et al., 2013). Porter & Tanner (2004)
agrees that BE frameworks are more holistic in nature compared to TQM and they
provide a complete systematic integration into the business firm; though they are initiated
from TQM of the 90s. However, such integration of improved BE frameworks whether
can be applied in a digital firm or not is really a concern due to the generic nature of core
BE frameworks.
Currently, most of the firms employ internet technologies which are very
progressive and changing almost every year. Since the 1990s one after another
technological development such as wireless technology, Global System for Mobile
(GSM) data, point of sales (POS) terminal and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
built a foundation for ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). IoT is very recent technology that was
first coined by British entrepreneur Kevin Ashton. This revolutionary technology can
control almost all office or home belongings. Different academicians and professional
body defined it in different prospective. However, the most famous definition is
provided by (ITU-T Y.2060, 2015) as:
A global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced
services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing
and evolving interoperable information and communication technologies.
NOTE 1 – Through the exploitation of identification, data capture,
processing, and communication capabilities, the IoT makes full use of
things to offer services to all kinds of applications, while ensuring that
security and privacy requirements are fulfilled.
NOTE 2 – From a broader perspective, the IoT can be perceived as a
vision with technological and societal implications.
Inspired from IoT’s “of the things” concept, digital transformation based “EoT –
Excellence of Things” model can be developed that also utilizes frameworks, platforms,
services and best practices related to BE for adding value in digital firms. EoT may have
three ‘Enablers’ or ‘of things’ i.e., CoT (Corporate-Entrepreneurship of Things), LoT
(Lean of Things) and DoT (Data of Things). Enablers or ‘of the things’ is anything that
assists EoT to add business value. CoT is entrepreneurship within a large business firm
including working on a special idea or project, and developing the project like an
entrepreneur would but inside an established business firm. CoT is also known as
‘Intrapreneurship’. Similarly, LoT includes any lean related things such as Six Sigma
philosophy, reduction of waste, customer satisfaction, Kaizen tools and techniques,
breakthrough improvement. Moreover, DoT also includes anything related to quality
information that adds value to the business such as information services, Information
Technology, management information system, data science, BI (Business Intelligence).
This part of EoT is very vital as this provides quality information for decision making. A
survey was taken at a recent Compliance, Governance, and Oversight Counsel summit -
shows that approximately 25% of information stored in organizations has real business
value, while 5% is stored as business records and about 1% is retained due to a litigation
hold (Smallwood, 2014). It may imply that about 69% of information kept in most
companies may have no business value. On the grounds, utilization of a DT framework
is getting popularity day-by-day.
Moreover, DT can be easily fitted in Porter’s value chain (M. E. Porter, 1985) in
order to add value to the business. The modified value chain shows that Porter’s primary
and support activities shall be radically digitalized to digitally transform an organization.
Such radical digitalization finally results in disruptive innovation that touches digital
firm’s bottom line and ensure sustainability. Any weaker chain in an industry such as
supplier, partner, customer, and customer’s customer can be automatically removed by
other stronger firm if that weaker firm cannot perform well due to lack of digital
capabilities. The following figure (Figure-7: Porter’s Digital Value Chain) shows the
modified Porter’s Value Chain with DT:
Figure 7: Porter’s Digital Value Chain
Thus, with the help of Porter’s value chain model, DT can be defined as the way
of radical digitalization of primary activities including coordination, operation, marketing
and sales, and service; as well as support activities consist of corporate infrastructure,
human resource management, technology, and procurement for enabling business with
innovative technology either to disrupt others in the ecosystem or to protect digital firm
itself from disruption. In other words, a radical digitalization in all function of business
results in disruptive innovation that in turn add a margin for the business. Moreover, DT
also means connecting digital firms into the digital industry value chain consisting of
digital customers, digital firms, digital suppliers, digital partners, and digital customers’
customers.
Purpose of the Study
This study seeks the meaning of EoT for digital firms. Besides, the components
of DT based BE are also explored through an in-depth interview. More specifically, this
study has the following four objectives:
1. To explore the meaning of EoT for digital firms that are partially or fully
transformed digitally.
2. To explore the things that drive Digital firms to accept EoT.
3. To find how LoT, DoT and CoT enable EoT in Digital Firms.
4. To explore the aspects of EoT regarding add value to the business of digital firms.
Significance of the Study
Being a non-proprietary or an open framework, EoT as a BE framework will
freely be available to any researcher, practitioner, or academician. It is flexible enough to
adapt in any digital firm regardless of size, nature, complexity, and industry. Thus, this
study will add value to the DT, BE or any management practitioners in gaining new
insight into an open DT based BE framework. It is also valuable as a source of literature
by others in the same fields as the findings may be useful in such scenarios. The study is
also useful as it may form the basis for further research by other scholars on issues like
the effectiveness of the model and much more.
In order to achieve DT based BE, EoT has principles, reference model, capability
model, and implementation cycle. Digital firms can utilize this framework for removing
hurdles of winning BE awards. Moreover, EoT can also be utilized as a reference

framework during implementing any other international framework such as Demin Prize,
Baldrige Award and EFQM award.
Significance of the Study to Leadership
This study focuses more on the people and the leadership for EoT
implementation. Therefore, this study is also very significant to the leaders who will
create a culture of trust, innovation, and creative thinking with the assistance of EoT.
Moreover, EoT covers three key challenging areas of management, i.e., CoT, LoT, and
DoT. The leaders can holistically integrate these three components for digital
transformation with the support of EoT.
Nature of the Study
This study explores theoretical models called EoT. This study gains a deep
understanding of a DT based BE. As a qualitative approach, this study also utilizes the
survey and existing documents to build a framework. A digital survey, online videos,
and other online resources have been used to gather data. Computerized qualitative
analysis on gathered data has been performed too.
Finally, comparative analysis has been conducted by summarizing empirical
substance, sensitizing concepts, coding theoretically, writing memos thoughtfully and
theoretically in a ‘stream of consciousness’ fashion, and finally integrating all of them to
the literature review. Also, the framework is structured based on integrated literature and
finding relationship concepts or themes.

Research Questions
Central Research Question: What does EoT mean for digital firms that are
considering Digital Transformation (DT) based Business Excellence (BE) framework?
Sub Research Questions:
RQ1. What does EoT mean for digital firms that are partially or fully transformed
digitally?
RQ2. What are the things that drive digital firms to accept EoT?
RQ3. How CoT, LoT and DoT enable EoT in digital firms?
RQ4. What are the aspects of EoT in regard to add value to the business of digital
firms?
Definition of Terms
Analytics- it is the process of analyzing information from a particular domain,
such as website analytics; or process of applying the breadth of business intelligence
capabilities to a specific content area such as sales, service, supply chain. Analytics has
gained a growing interest from business and IT professionals looking to exploit huge
mounds of internally generated and externally available data (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Artificial intelligence- it is technology that appear to emulate human performance
typically by learning, coming to its own conclusions, appearing to understand complex
content, engaging in natural dialogs with people, enhancing human cognitive
performance (also known as cognitive computing) or replacing people on execution of
nonroutine tasks (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Big Data- Big Data can analyze structured data like database content, semi-
structured data like log files or XML (Extensible Markup Language) files and
unstructured content like text documents or web pages or graphics.
Blockchain- Information on a blockchain is shared ledger around the digital
world, i.e., the records it retains are actually open and simply certifiable whereas
temptation is nearly impossible. Once any data is recorded inside the blocks of the
blockchain, it becomes impossible to change or temper that.
Business Excellence (BE)- European Foundation for Quality Management
(EFQM) defines BE as outstanding practices in managing the organization and achieving
results, all based on a set of few fundamental concepts such as results orientation,
customer focus, leadership and constancy of purpose, management by processes and

facts, people of development and involvement, continuous learning, innovation and
improvement, partnership development, and public responsibility (Dwivedi, 2009).
Business Excellence Models (BEM)- BEMs are frameworks to apply within an
organization to focus through the action in a more efficient and organized way that lead
to increased business performance. Thus, BEMs such as Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award (MBNQA), and European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)
are valid approaches to enhancing the management capabilities of enterprises (Dahlgaard
et al., 2013).
Business Intelligence (BI)- is a broad term that includes the applications,
infrastructure, tools, techniques, and best practices to analyze information in order to
improve and optimize business decisions and performance (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Business process management (BPM)- BPM is a discipline that uses various
methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, and optimize business processes.
A business process coordinates the behavior of people, systems, information, and things
to produce business outcomes in support of a business strategy. Processes can be
structured and repeatable or unstructured and variable. Though not required,
technologies are often used with BPM (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Cloud computing: It is an on-demand utilization of computing resources such as a
processor, storage, network over the internet.
COBIT- It is a proprietary framework of ISACA dealing with IT control, IT
governance and IT management to ensure the value of a business firm’s investment in IT
and achievement of the firm’s goals. The latest version is 2019 called COBIT 2019, and
prior version is five called COBIT5. Generally, ‘COBIT’ indicates any version of the
framework.
Data – is a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables (ISACA, 2013).
Data Warehouse (DW)- DW is a storage architecture designed to store data
fetched from business systems, operational data stores, and external sources in order to
prepare reports for predefined business needs (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Data Mining (DM)- DM is the process of discovering meaningful correlations,
patterns, and trends by sifting through massive amounts of data stored in repositories.
DM also utilizes pattern recognition technologies, as well as statistical and mathematical
techniques (Angoss Corporation, 2011).
Digital- It represents physical items or activities through binary code. When it is
used as an adjective, it describes the primary use of the latest digital technologies to
improve business processes, improve interactions between people, organizations and
things, or make new business models possible (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Digital Business Model- Digital business models are used as a tool to explain the
rise of mega internet brands and how companies can innovate in the digital era
(https://goo.gl/hfrXa7).
Digital Customer- Digital customers use digital channels — Web, mobile and
social — to consume content, engage with brands and complete a transaction (Gartner
Inc., 2018).
Digital Disruption- Digital disruption is an effect that changes the fundamental
expectations and behaviors in a culture, market, industry or process that is caused by, or
expressed through, digital capabilities, channels or assets (Gartner Inc., 2018).

Digital Ecosystem- A digital ecosystem is an interdependent group of enterprises,
people and/or things that share standardized digital platforms for a mutually beneficial
purpose, such as commercial gain, innovation, or common
interest(https://goo.gl/g5E2mh)
Digital Firm- A partially or entirely digitally transformed organization can be
called ‘digital firm’ that may have the best technologies such as mobile technologies, Big
Data, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Main
business processes of a digital firm are executed through digital infrastructure covering
the whole organization or linking external organizations (Laudon & Laudon, 2013).
Digital Leader- Digital leader utilizes a digital firm’s digital assets to response
digital disruption.
Digital Transformation - It is the process of exploiting digital technologies and
supporting capabilities in order to build a robust, and innovative digital business model to
add business value (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Digital Strategy- A digital strategy is the process of articulating the vision, goals,
and opportunities to create deeper customer interactions, data-driven decision making,
and customer experience models for meetings customers’ needs, wants and interests
(Gartner Inc., 2018).
Digitized – It is the status of a business firm that has already changed from
manual/analog state to digital form. (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Digitalization – It is the use of digital technologies to change a business model
and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities; it is the process of moving
to a digital business. (Gartner Inc., 2018).

Driver – Anything that influences on stakeholders or business such as changes in
regulation may influence stakeholder to change business strategy.
Enabler- Anything that helps to achieve something. For example, people are the
enabler that executes the processes and process is also another enabler that generates
information.
Enterprise Information Management (EIM)- EIM is an integrated discipline for
structuring, describing and governing information assets throughout a business firm and
technological boundaries to improve efficiency, promote transparency and enable
business insight (Gartner Inc., 2018).
European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)- EFQM Model was
familiarized as the assessment framework for The European Quality Award in 1992. It is
a commonly used organizational framework in Europe. It has also become very popular
in other regions and has become the basis for a series of several national and regional
Quality Awards (Dodangeh et al., 2011).
Framework- It is a broad overview, outline, or skeleton of an interconnected item
that support a particular approach to a specific objective (Business Dictionary).
Information- Data generates meaningful information. It is also considered as a
tangible asset for a business firm. It is stored in a textual form such as messages, e-mail,
workflow content, and spreadsheets. It can be stored in digital and paper documents. It
can be purchased content or public content from the Internet (Gartner Inc., 2018; ISACA,
2013).
Information Governance (IG)- IG is decision rights and accountability to ensure
correct behavior in the valuation, creation, storage, use, archiving and deletion of
information. It includes the processes, roles, and policies, standards and metrics that
enhance the effective and efficient use of information in enabling a business firm to
achieve its objectives (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Information Management (IM)- IM is a method of using technology to collect,
process and analysis information for efficient management. IM tools need to be capable
of receiving information in a “top-down,” “bottom-up” or “middle-out” evolutionary
manner (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Information Technology (IT)- IT is the common term for the entire spectrum of
technologies for information processing, including software, hardware, communications
technologies and related services (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Information Technology Governance (ITG)- ITG confirms that stakeholder needs,
conditions, and options are evaluated to determine balanced, agreed-on enterprise
objectives to be achieved; setting direction through prioritization and decision making;
and monitoring performance and compliance against agreed-on direction and objectives
(ISACA, 2018).
Information Technology Management (ITM)- ITM deals with planning, building,
running, and monitoring activities of IT to align with and support objectives as agreed
with IT governance (ISACA, 2018).
Internet of Things (IoT): IoT is a system of interconnected computer devices,
mechanical and digital machines, objects, or people having unique identifiers (UIDs) and
able to transmit data over the internet automatically.
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA)- MBNQA is a national
award established by the U.S. Congress in 1987 to increase awareness of quality

management and appreciate U.S. firms that have implemented successful quality
management systems. MBNQA is titled after the late Secretary of Commerce Malcolm
Baldrige, a promoter of quality management. Awards are given annually in six
categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education, healthcare, and not-for-
profit. The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) manages the award, and (American Society for Quality) ASQ
administers it (Lazaros, Sofia, & George, 2017).
Mobile Technology - Mobile technology includes portable devices such as
smartphones, tablets, and wearables that provide users the functionality and connectivity.
Digital firms have adapted to the dynamic patterns of consumer behavior and gradually
shift towards mobile communication channels to minimize mobile disruptions.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)- RPA, another branch of AI, is software or a
“robot”, configured to capture and interpret applications for processing a transaction,
manipulating data, triggering responses, and communicating with other digital systems.
Transformative Focus Area (TFA)- TFA is the building blocks of EoT framework
that are identified by the team for digital transformation.

Assumptions
Most of the theories, frameworks and researches have some assumptions that are
often play a vital role in research work. Similarly, this study has a few of the
assumptions as follows:
1. The participants have responded the interview queries in a truthful and
straightforward fashion. At the same time, it is also assured to the participants
that their confidentiality is intact – that may motivate them to be more honest and
candid.
2. The inclusion criteria of the sample are considered to be appropriate; and
therefore, it is assured that the participants have all necessary experiences on the
same or similar phenomenon of the study.
3. Participants have genuine enthusiasm in joining in the survey; and they do not
have any other intentions, such as getting a gift or any payment.
4. The principles, policies, framework and other tools of business excellence can
be integrated into a holistic framework to support EoT.
5. The comprehensive literature review on the main concepts mentioned above
related to this study is trustful and adequate for developing EoT.
6. The concepts of the digital transformation used in this study are suitable for
designing the DT based BE framework.
7. The EoT framework is useful for business excellence in digital firms.

Limitations
It is also mentioned earlier that the primary purpose of the study is to build a non-
proprietary DT based BE framework that will add value to the practitioners and
researchers. A conceptual framework is also developed – that clearly showed the
boundary of the study. Such a boundary can also be seen as a limitation or opportunity
for improvement or a scope for further research. However, the limitations of this study
are as follows:
1. This study is limited to the amount of time available to conduct the study.
2. This study is limited to subjects who agree to participate voluntarily.
3. The selected sample size is quite enough to conclude sufficiently.
4. As the data is collected via internet survey, it could be possible that some of
their recollections of events, situations, and feelings could be questionable.
5. There may be unseen circumstances or causes at participants’ end, their work,
or their study that could bias their responses.
6. Validity of this study is limited to the reliability of the instruments used.
Delimitations
This study confines itself to surveying business excellence in digital firms. This
study focuses on BE, DT and related drivers, enablers, value addition, a culture of
excellence, lean thinking, breakthrough improvement, and continual improvements.
Only senior level employees of digital firms have been included in the study.
Scope of the Study
This study focuses on BE on digital firms – that are partially or fully transformed
digitally. In practice, it is often bit confusing during implementation DT to distinguish

among EIM (Enterprise Information Management), IG (Information Governance), IM
(Information Management) and EGIT (Enterprise Governance of IT). So, this study also
explains these terminologies in order to clarify and utilize IM as one of the DT
capabilities in digital firms. There is also an in-depth analysis of DT based BE.
The data is collected via an online survey from senior managers working in the
existing digital firms. Then data is analyzed to seek current phenomenon of DT and BE
in these digital firms. EoT framework is developed by integrating people, lean thinking,
intrapreneurship, and IM.
Summary
As business challenges are rising, organizations are moving towards BE. Also,
few BE frameworks and awards also started to add business value as a final artifact.
However, BE can be achieved in some ways while EoT is one of the ways to do so. EoT
has three ‘Enablers’ such as CoT, LoT and DoT. All of these address EoT to add
business value. This study emphasizes on BE in digital firms by ensuring DT.
In this era of information, different management gurus, writers, academicians, and
practitioners consider information as one of the most valued resources of a digital firm.
For that reason; the primary objective of this exploratory study is to develop ‘non-
proprietorship’ BE framework known as EoT by integrating lean philosophy, IM and
corporate entrepreneurship in order to add value to digital firms. That will also add value
to the academicians and practitioners.
A qualitative approach is employed for building EoT framework. This framework
mainly focuses on BE and DT. As a part of BE, this study also focuses on quality and
process improvement. Many companies like Toyota also has built up their business
models valuing information as an organization’s key asset, and they are successful until
today. Finally, it is noteworthy to mention that four research questions have been
answered in this study by employing the Delphi method for data collection and data
analysis.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
History of Quality Management
The simple meaning of ‘quality’ in business and management is to accomplish a
set of standards or principles in a measurable way (Duffy, 2013). With this meaning, at
first, the quality was used in the arena of business excellence by an employee of Bell
Telephone company named Walter Shewhart who died in 1967. In 1923, he initiated
Statistical Process Control (SPC) as a process of quality control. Shewhart also
introduced another method of improving the process, i.e., the Plan-Do-Check-Act
(PDCA). Later W. Edwards Deming said that in the course of improving the process of
work, it is a wastage of time for the managers to check the cause of wastage because
performance is not dependent on the employees rather on the system. In order to prove
his belief, Deming demonstrated the result of an experiment on six participants who tried
to pick red marbles from a mixture of white and red marbles. The result implies that a
manager will waste his/her time if s/he engages in finding reasons of fault or success after
it has actually happened. He proposed to replace the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) with
the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) system.
Later in the 1950s, W. Edwards Deming (death 1993) developed his thoughts on
Total Quality Management (Bauer, Duffy, & Westcott, 2006). Quality control, quality
assurance, company-wide quality control, total quality, total quality management, and
other quality programs and standards are immensely indebted to the TQM concepts (L. J.
Porter & Tanner, 2004). Indeed, TQM paved the way of all excellence models. For
example, the six-step protocol based on Six Sigma is also a subset of the broader concept
of TQM. Thus, the core of the many modern business or organizational excellence
frameworks is the TQM. Foremost philosophy of TQM is quality comes from the top but
addresses all. Unlike previous quality improvement programs and assessments, such as
SPC, Deming’s TQM is free from the advanced and complex statistical and mathematical
calculation. Deming started to accept the concept of quality given Shewhart, which
postulated that quality comes from the user’s satisfaction (W. E. Deming, 1984).
In the course of time, while TQM movement was more than 35 years old, a
quality management system (QMS) standard called ISO 9000 emerged with eight
principles as a subset of TQM. Goetsch & Davis (2014) said “ISO 9000 and TQM are
related but not interchangeable” (p. 250). Both originated independently of each other at
different points of time. ISO 9000 was published for the first time in 1987 with the
involvement of American Society for Quality (ASQ) along with other international
teams. In short, TQM has some features and application which are not found in ISO
9000 however ISO 9000 does not consider TQM as a competitor. That is why; ISO 9000
sometimes fits in the non-TQM environment because ISO 9000 does not require any
teamwork which is essential in TQM (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The latest version is ISO
9001:2015 released in 2015.
Long before the ISO was created, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers
(JUSE) introduced in 1951 Deming Prize in honor of Dr. Edward Deming - founder of
TQM philosophy. Deming (1982) emphasizes the importance of obtaining the
information to quality process variations. The other literature also supports that quality-
related data and information must be available in order to improve quality process
management. Taguchi (1986) further focuses on the role of information in quality
management by recommending that the root causes of quality problems shall be

determined along with the quality management transformation. So, it is imperative to say
that IM has a vital role to play in the area of BE. According to Matta, Chen, & Tama
(1998), utilization of IM into BE is a critical success factor in the implementation of such
an information-based management system. Moreover, the similar fact is also depicted by
the Figure-5 (Comparison of core BE Frameworks, COBIT and EoT enablers). It shows
that information is used in the analysis to proceed to the next stage throughout all stages.
However, the quality movement is now focusing on quality management of the
entire business system while quality improvement is the foundation of Business
Excellence (BE). According to Ionica et al. (2010) – “Excellence is the state or quality of
excelling. Particularly in the field of business and organization, excellence is considered
to be an important value, and a goal to be pursued”. Dr. Edward Deming, the pioneer
quality guru, has also shown and proved the natural steps of achieving business
excellence as presented in the following Figure-6:
Figure 8: Deming’s Chain Reaction (Ionica et al., 2010)

Total Quality Management (TQM) – Foundation of BE Frameworks
Mann, Mohammad, & A. Agustin (2012) defines TQM originated Business
Excellence (BE) as an approach of developing and strengthening the management
systems in order to improve performance, to create value for stakeholders, and to have a
quality system in place. Finally, these factors assist in achieving excellence in
everything that the business firm does such as leadership, strategy, customer focus,
information management, people and processes. Though initially TQM was referred to
the management procedure only, it is now called Business Excellence models to cover all
aspects of a business (Alkelani, Hasnan, Mohammad, Ahmad, & Ataalah, 2015).
In order to achieve a competitive advantage in the realm of dynamic challenges in
business and organizations, usually, the management undergoes a BE process (Pozega,
Crnkovic, & Udovicic, 2014). TQM models are also called Business Excellence Models
(BEM), and so there is often confusion in between TQM and BE. Several TQM based
frameworks of BE started to develop beginning 1951 to assess the business excellence.
Alonso-Almeida & Fuentes-Frías (2012) in their study identified the presence of more
than 35 international quality awards and excellence quality models around the world.
The first BE award, Deming Award, was established by the Japanese Union of Scientists
and Engineers (JUSE) in 1951 to honor Dr. W. Edwards Deming who contributed
significantly to Japan’s production after World War II. TQM is a management tactic to
long-term success through customer satisfaction throughout organization-wide
participation in enlightening processes, products, services, and organizational culture.
However, there is the difference in between TQM of the 80s and that of 90s.
TQM of the 80s, the purely TQM models, used to only focus on everyone’s participation
in improving processes, products, services, and organizational culture while TQM of 90s
focus on the value creation including customer value, firm’s value and stakeholders’
value (Mele & Colurcio, 2006). Firm’s value is not only economic value but also
tangible or intangible that determines the prosperity of the firm in the long run. M. E.
Porter (1985) also developed his Generic Value Chain model focusing on a firm’s value.
According to him, a value chain is a set of activities that an organization carries out to
create value for its customers. M. E. Porter (1985) also proposed a generic value chain
that any firms may utilize to verify all of the activities and to see how they are connected.
The way in which value chain activities are performed determines costs and affects
profits, and so this tool can explain the sources of value for a business firm.
However, TQM of the 90s is the origin of many subsequent BE frameworks (L. J.
Porter & Tanner, 2004). In 1987 the U.S. Commerce Department started the Baldrige
Award after the name of the late Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige, a promoter
of quality management. The U.S. Commerce Department’s NIST (National Institute of
Standards and Technology) manages the award, and the American Society for Quality
(ASQ) administers it. In 1991 the European Foundation for Quality Management
(EFQM) introduced as the framework for assessing applications for The European
Quality Award in Europe; and has now become the fundamental of several national and
regional quality awards. These three BE frameworks are collectively known as the ‘Core
BE frameworks. Besides, there are other BE national and regional frameworks such as
the Singapore Quality Award Model, the Japan Quality Award Model, the Canadian
Business Excellence Model, the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF)
awards are developed several times based on the Core BE Frameworks.

Origin of ‘Excellence of Things’: The Total Excellence
Excellence needs re-interpretation because excellence is a continuous
improvement process of organizational systems and practices following a repeated cycle
(L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004). In line with the growing need and changes in the business
world, excellence must be realized and interpreted holistically and comprehensively. For
example, Quality and excellence must not be taken as a short-term project, but it is a
long-term project (Zink, 1998). On the grounds, excellence might be defined in such a
way which is attainable for some categories of business organizations for example digital
firms. These digital firms to some extent have remained outside the popular business
excellence frameworks (this point has been discussed in the first chapter).
Hence, the issue of ‘excellence of things’ meaning the total and comprehensive
total quality was inspired from IoT’s “of the things”. Its implication drives the concept of
digital transformation based “EoT – Excellence of Things” model which can be
developed that also utilize frameworks, platforms, services and best practices related to
BE. EoT proposes that excellence must add value. In order to add value to the business,
EoT utilizes three ‘Enablers’ or ‘of things’, i.e., Corporate-Entrepreneurship of Things
(CoT), Lean of Things (LoT) and Data of Things (DoT). Enablers or ‘of the things’ are
the things that assist EoT to add business value. Adding value to the business does not
take place in silos. If any of the enablers works very efficiently while others are
inefficient, no value will be added in the business. Therefore, CoT, LoT, and DoT need
to work simultaneously via integration layer to add value in the business. M. E. Porter
(1985) stresses on such thing with the help of ‘Generic Value Chain model. Like
Porter’s value chain model, CoT, LoT and DoT are being integrated to add value to the
business by generating key results such as satisfied customers, motivated employees and
optimized business process. Generating such key result and adding value to the business
are not something new somewhat these are already proven by EFQM excellence model.
Most of the firms aim to perform high in the business, but it is not easy to achieve
it because there are challenges. On the grounds, pursuing excellence is one of the tasks
commonly found in all business, which will never end. Meaning and understanding of
excellence are diverse based on time, space and needs. Excellence of Things refers to the
comprehensive excellence which directs a business firm towards a competitive market
advantage through appropriate business strategies, practices, and stakeholder-related
performance results (Ionica et al., 2010). Generally, excellence is observed through the
quality of goods and services. In order to survive in the global or domestic competition, a
business firm is considering ‘quality’ as a crucial factor nowadays (Nwankwo &
Richardson, 2012).
While the concept of quality developed through a series of stages thus the concept
of excellence did. For example, in the early stage, the management related the quality of
a product with the post-production inspection; and then it transformed to preventive
process improvement; and finally, it is now the journey in continual process improvement
of business. Gradually in the history, some other business excellence awards have been
introduced such as Deming Prize, EFQM Excellence Award, Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award. Apart from these business excellence models and frameworks, some
other standards are also prevalent across business types and purposes. From the above
discussions, it is now evident that the role of information in all stages of quality or
excellence is significantly crucial. Besides, the enormous usages of smartphones and

internet-connected devices simply multiply the importance of IM in BE. Therefore, the
enterprise information management is very much significant and more crucial than mere
information management.
Towards Digital Transformation (DT)
Journey to Digital Transformation (DT)
According to Schallmo and Williams, in this new millennium, the enormous
growth of smart devices and social media platforms result in radical change in customer
interaction with businesses, and there are changes in customer expectation with regards to
response times and multi-channel availability. Digital firms also realized that they need
to communicate with their customers individually, instantly and digitally. On the other
hand, the revolution of digital payment options started and payment gateway for instant
PayPal also started contributing to electronic commerce and web-based points of sales.
Currently, there is a significant concentration on mobile devices and on creating
customer value by leveraging personalized customer data that mobile technologies can
generate on a massive scale. Some digital firms are now taking opportunities of this
personalized information and tailoring their products, communications, and interactions
to fit customers’ specific needs (Schallmo & Williams, 2018).
Thus, until today DT is on its journey. The journey of DT also shows that few
innovative people started their DT journey during 2012. They frequently coach digital
transformation opportunities and share their thoughts and knowledges with each other,
and they cooperate regularly with the external actors of the innovation process, opinion
leaders, vendors, consultants, in the overall open innovation ecosystem (Bongiorno et al.,
2018). Castello, Gazzano, and Vaia also depicted in Bongiorno, Rizzo, & Vaia (2018)
the entire digital ecosystem journey in the following figure (Figure-7):
Figure 9: Digital Transformation Journey (Bongiorno et al., 2018)
Digitization or Digitalization
The words ‘digitization’ and ‘digitalization’ are bit different from each other
though some people often miss-interpret them. ‘Digitization’ is converting an analog
signal to digital for instance taking a photograph and then turn it into a digital photograph
(Schallmo & Williams, 2018). On the other hand, digital refers to something related to
electronic signals of ‘0’ and ‘1’. In other words, digital is the convergence of multiple
technology innovations enabled by connectivity (El-Masri, 2018). On the other hand,
‘digitalization’ for business means enterprise-wide information system based on the
technological foundation of the Internet or related technologies (Li, Merenda, &
Venkatachalam, 2009).
However, changing a firm from manual (analog) to digital is not an easy job to
do. Trompennars and Woolliams argue that lots of things shall be done from customer vs
demand, organizational changes and attitudes and ways of working (Trompenaars &
Woolliams, 2016). The following table (Table-1) shows such differences:
Table 1:
Analog to Digital Changes
Change or Transform
In the previous discussion, we have seen that changing business is also not a very
easy job to do and changes are always challenging. However, change and transform are
not the same thing. In general, “when a snake sheds its skin it changes; when a
caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it transforms” (Safruddin, Rosemann Michael, Recker, &
Genrich, 2014). Also, George Westerman further explains this point by saying – “when a
digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when
done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar” (Westerman, 2018). In business,
change generally means changing past for better performance whereas transformation
means creating a wave of shifting the business towards the future. Digital
Transformation (DT) refers to the utilization of technology to radically improve the
performance or reach of enterprises (Camgemini Consulting, 2011). Similarly, Gartner
Inc. (2018) defines DT “Digital business transformation is the method of manipulating
digital technologies and supporting capabilities to build a robust new digital business
model.”
Nonetheless, DT should not be confused with Business Process Re-engineering
(BPR) though they have few seminaries. BPR focuses on automating noticeably assigned
role-based process while DT obtains and utilizes new data to reimagine these old, rule-
based processes and turn them into innovative business models and operations as Apple
did with iPhone (Schallmo & Williams, 2018).
The real story of Blackberry and Apple smartphones are very well-known to
everyone by now. Later in 2007, Apple introduced iPhone as a platform to transform the
smartphone market while Blackberry wrongly underestimated Apple’s disruption and
trusted on its customer-base and customer-loyalty. As a result, Blackberry lost its
market dramatically. Today, the market capitalization of Apple is more than $540 billion
whereas the former RIM of Blackberry is now valued at less than $4 billion (Eran Dilger,
2016). On the grounds, such innovation of iPhone was a digital transformation for Apple
while digital disruption for Blackberry.
Digital Disruption
Digitization is radically changing the business environment that enhances
opportunity and innovation for enhanced customer experience through introducing
products, services or business models. Technology is transforming the nature of the
business, making it more fluid, social, global, accelerated, risky, and competitive. All the
tremendous innovative digital firms that utilize technology to transform them are
radically disrupting others in the market — for instance, Apple disrupted Blackberry;
USPS (United States Postal Service) disrupted DHL, FedEx; Netflix disrupted
Blockbuster; and Amazon disrupted Barnes & Noble as well as other retail bookshops.
Disruption is getting powerful day-by-day and moving very fast due to technological
advances such as cloud and mobile computing, changing workforce, digitized supply
chain, digital consumers, and every changing global regulation.
However, such disruption backed by technological advances are also
opportunities for digital firms if they can consider the challenges. Taking such
challenges enhances increased competitive advantage through automation and greater
efficiencies and finally leads to disruptive innovation that creates new markets or
reshapes existing ones. It also improves in quality, replace older technologies and
provides better, faster, cheaper and smarter technologies to the customers (Barrenechea &
Jenkins, 2015). According to McQuivey and Josh digital disruption is getting stronger
and faster by 10 times, power by 100 times with 1/10th of cost (McQuivey & Bernoff,
2013). Such changes come with the great digital leader and great disruptive digital
strategy that is discussed in the next sections.
Digital Customers
Digital customers are the center point of digital disruption due to their ever-
increasing expectation of better and consistent quality, faster delivery and cheaper
products. Simply put, digital customers utilize digital channels such as website, mobile
technologies and social networking in order to consume products, to engage with brands
and to complete the transactions (Gartner Inc., 2018). Similarly, Borowski defines digital
customer experience that includes only those experiences through a digital interface such
as computer and other portable devices. For instance, digital customer experiences
include researching a product online or finding out a nearest store’s location using a
mobile app (Borowski, 2015). To be successful in digital transformation, the digital
leaders have to design and digitalize customer journeys; increase speed and agility in
generating customer insight; achieve customer adoption of digital customer journeys; and
develop agility in delivering journey transformations (Duncan et al., 2017).
Digital Leaders
It is the leader that delivers success DT, not technology. So, digital leaders need
to understand the digital ecosystem; gain at least minimum level of knowledge to lead a
digital team, department or organization effectively and successfully; and support
organizational changes for digital strategy execution. Moreover, leaders have to be smart
enough to execute the right digital strategy, adopt digital technologies and invest more in
emerging technologies to be closer to the customers. They also need to be more
compelling for seeking out and hiring teams with the right skills and competencies in
order to get the benefit of the technologies (Hendrick, 2017). For instance, digital leaders
like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who focus on digital firms instead of status
quo and disrupt their entire industry with their new technology-enabled product or
services.
Digital leaders also need to find out where the disruption mainly occurs – in
products, marketing or operation; values and capabilities to empower a team to exploit
innovation for digital transformation; the key transformative technologies that are driving
the current trends and their effect on industry value change, jobs, and customer behavior.
Digital Strategy
Digital leaders need to understand digital disruption and digital customers’
expectation that are increasing day-by-day due to emerging advancement of technology.
If we look at ‘Gartner Hype Cycle 2018’, we can see how technology is changing the
business world. As per Gartner Hype Cycle, for instance, there will be ‘Virtual assistant’
by next two to five years, ‘Biochip’ to detect diseases by five to ten years and ‘Flying
Autonomous Vehicle’ after ten years. The following figure shows the ‘Hype Cycle’ in
Figure-9 (Panetta, 2018):

Figure 10: Gartner Hype Cycle 2018

Such innovations assist in evolving businesses into a digital business and strategy
as digital strategy. Digital Strategy is the starting point to create a success DT. A digital
strategy will have a clear answer of “why transform”, “what to transform” and “how to
transform” (Wade, 2015). A digital firm has lots of factors to be motivated towards DT
journey such as digital customers, operational agility, globalization, regulatory changes,
digital technological advancements, generation Z (below 17 years of youngsters).
Moreover, further motivation for DT may also come from new competitors with
enhanced offerings, better engagement models, or lower prices. Further, the motivation
can also come from the inside. A survey found that 65% of digital motivation was
initiated from within their industries (Wade, 2015).
After strong motivation in digital strategy, the digital firm has to follow any of the
transformation paths as discussed earlier in Figure-2 (Digital Transformation Paths).
According to Wade, there are seven things to be transformed such as business model that
answer how a company makes money, structure that defines how a company is
organized, people that identify who works for a company, processes that guides how a
company does things, IT capability that clarify how information is managed, offerings
that produces what products and services a digital firm offers, and engagement that deal
with how a company engages with its customers and other stakeholders. These seven
vital elements of DT make up an organization’s value chain as it relates to digital
transformation (Wade, 2015).
However, learning ‘why’ and ‘what’ of DT introduces another challenge, i.e.
‘how’ that is the hardest part of the digital strategy. Indeed, many of the DT journey fails
because of poor execution. Wade defines three ways of smooth execution – ‘hyper-
awareness’- identification of the appropriate disruptive technology from Hyper Cycle that
will disrupt the digital firm in the near future; ‘informed decision making’- getting insight
from information that will facilitate ‘hyper-awareness’; ‘fast execution’- that combines
speed and implementation of successful execution based on organizational culture that
inspires experimentation and tolerates failure (Wade, 2015). DT is not low-hanging fruit
to achieve very quickly. It requires enormous time, money and effort to have the right
strategy and right digital leaders to execute them.
Digital Transformation Models
After preparing a digital strategy, digital transformation model has been built up
to carry on transformation. Several authors, researchers, practitioners, and academicians
are defining DT models from different perspectives. However, the DT models vary
based on the business model and its components of that particular organization, value-
added chains, and value-added network. DT models shall address objectivity and be
open to considering the market and the digital firms in innovative ways for identifying
new requirements and opportunities; and setting the context for the organization and its
digital customers.
The enormity of the DT is associated with the incremental as well as the radical
change of a business model (Schallmo & Williams, 2018). Nevertheless, Wade has
identified seven categories of DT models for BE in digital firms along with their required
degree of digital business transformation as depicted in the following figure (Figure-10)
(Wade, 2015).
Figure 11: Wade’s Categories of Digital Business Transformation Models
Moreover, Safruddin has classified there are four types of DT: Radical
Transformation- core concept, enterprise architectural design of business is changed, and
a significant change in business model is also done, for instance, Amazon Rainforest
case, Vodafone, FedEx, and SAP; Architectural Transformation- enterprise architecture is
modified while the core concept is unchanged, for instance, UK Police and European
Customs; Modular Transformation- overall enterprise architecture remains unchanged
while core-design is changed, for instance, Shell, T.Co and Allianz; and finally
Incremental Transformation- enterprise architecture is redefined, and its components are
enhanced accordingly, for instance, Mercedes-Benz and Lukas Financial Services
(Safruddin et al., 2014). Digital firms choose the types of transformation based on
stakeholders’ expectations and conditions.
It is imperative to mention that DT based BE, EoT, focus more on people, process
and technology as well as other types as identified by Wade. Moreover, EoT focuses
more on ‘radical transformation’ as per Safruddin’s concept.
Digital Ecosystem
Whatever the digital strategy or DT model is, at the end of the day digital firm has
to consider the digital ecosystem containing strategy, technology, people and omni-
channels such as website, online-catalog, payment solution, mobile apps, social media,
physical store, near-field communication, touch-screen/ tablets, digital screen. The
digital ecosystem is a system of distinct entities - that is self-organized and collaborative.
It also helps digital firms to apprehend better its customer experience ecosystem that is a
combination of collaborations and transactions between a digital firm and employees,
partners, suppliers, and customers. During innovation a digital firm cannot work silos
somewhat it has to work as a part of the digital ecosystem, and it has to take part in these
ecosystems to deliver value to customers. As a result, a digital firm can modestly
communicate, collaborate, and innovate as part of a global ecosystem (Barrenechea &
Jenkins, 2015).
For instance, taxi aggregators have smoothly transformed the private
transportation sector by utilizing mobile apps over wireless or broadband infrastructure.
Also, content providers are also able to aggregate, curate, and provide content to end
customers through cloud solution over wired and wireless broadband networks - that, in
turn, has resulted in the way network businesses capture and retain value. Moreover, a
research in Deloitte has found that the software sector’s internet portals and platforms
segment revenue grew at a CAGR of 23 percent in the last thirteen years. Thus, the
digital ecosystem is creating value in the global business ecosystem by creating a new
source of revenue, optimizing cost structure and expanding the speed of technology
adaption. On the grounds, Google, Amazon, and Facebook transformed them and
became part of the digital ecosystem, and they have also leveraged core technology
sectors into shopping, marketing, and the digitization of everything (Ahmed,
Gurumurthy, & Khetan, 2018).
Digital Transformation – A pathway to Excellence
In the last couples of year digital ecosystem has also tremendously changed the
digital firm’s way of doing business due to the availability of information toward external
and internal stakeholders. However, that has also created returns for digital firms
because the availability of customers data related to consumer behavior and utilize it for
business insights are the path to scale up. Thus, a digital firm may have opportunities to
promote brand and product loyalty. Nevertheless, that requires new organizational
capabilities such as the right business and technology platform. DT propositions the
prospect of linking customer service to profitability, managing costs by capitalizing on
spending trends and streamlining supply chain and back-office processes. Moreover, few
DT platform such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and IoT can deliver significant
business value in personalizing products and services and can also deliver new types of
customer service experience. For instance, connecting Amazon’s Go stores with the e-
Commerce platform attracts more customers and more supplies to their network resulting
in greater economies of scale (KPMG, 2016). Moreover, KPMG has also predicted that
technologies like IoT (17%), AI (13) and robotics (10%) will drive 40% of the total
digital business transformation shortly (KPMG, 2016). However, the technology
platform is not enough for digital business transformation. Gartner argues that
technology portfolio shall be rebalanced as follows (Figure-11) (Gartner, 2018a):
Figure 12: Gartner’s Rebalancing Technology Portfolio
However, Capitani argues that along with the technology platform, there are other
enablers such as business processes, products, services, business models play a vital role
to transform a digital firm (Bongiorno et al., 2018). The author also argues that digital
customer experience that is an interactive relationship via omnichannel, physical and
virtual access; re-organization of internal processes to exchange of data and information
between different business functions; and business model for new or innovation of
existing products or services are essential capabilities for digital business transformation
(Bongiorno et al., 2018). Most importantly, digital workforce plays an essential role in
pushing such capabilities forward and make them work; and real digital leaders also
understand the value of people in transforming an organization digitally (Bongiorno et
al., 2018). Multi-skilled digital workplace is essential for digital business transformation
where information is the ‘fuel’ of an organization. Nevertheless, digital firms have the
challenge to execute the workplace strategy to keep pace with a fast-changing workplace
and workforce (Gartner Inc., 2018). Therefore, people that are part of CoT, a process that
is part of LoT and technology that is part of DoT are the critical capabilities of digital
transformation for accomplishing of excellence in digital firms.
Capabilities of Digital Transformation (DT)
Most of the digital firms are already experiencing disruptions in their daily
operations caused by mobile technologies, big data, cloud computing, IoT, AI, RPA and
blockchain due to more accessible, faster and smarter kinds of expectation from their
digital customers. However, such disruptions are also creating opportunities for business
and can be utilized as capabilities too. Further, new technologies are evolving day-by-
day and giving muscle to DT. The following DT capabilities are flourishing DT in digital
firms:
Mobile Technologies
Mobile technology includes portable devices such as smartphones, tablets, and
wearables that provide users the functionality and connectivity. Moreover, the modern
high-speed mobile internet gives the freedom to the customers to browse on the web,
communicate, entertain, shop and pay anytime anywhere. So, digital firms have adapted
to the dynamic patterns of consumer behavior and gradually shift towards mobile
communication channels to minimize mobile disruptions.
On the other hand, employees also expect lots of flexibility or mobility in a
workplace, but efficient digital firms are also minimizing such challenges by digitally
transforming the conventional office workflow to the smart office (Bongiorno et al.,
2018). The employees of the digital firms can also ‘work from home’ as if they are in
office. They can access their internet telephony system, emails, a conferencing system
and their office files from home – that make them feel as if there are sitting in their office
workstation.
Big Data
While mobile technologies provide in accessing data, Big data - a large volume of
structured or unstructured data - is profoundly transforming the way businesses compete,
operate and analyze the data generated from mobile technologies. A digital firm that
invests in and successfully adds value from their data will have a definite advantage over
their rivals - a performance gap will continue to propagate as more relevant data is
produced (Ernst & Young, 2014).
However, during early 2000s such scenario was bit different, and there were the
solutions like Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), Business Intelligence (BI) and
analytics used to assist organizations to transform their raw data collections into
actionable wisdom. There is a different analytic application such as customer analytics,
financial analytics, risk analytics, product analytics, health-care analytics that has now
become an integral part of the business applications architecture of any digital firm.
However, all of these applications support structured data such as database contents
whereas Big Data supports structured data like database content, semi-structured data like
log files or XML (Extensible Markup Language) files and unstructured content like text
documents or web pages or graphics (Mohanty, Jagadeesh, & Srivatsa, 2013). However,
Big data disruption can be minimized by using data models. For instance, aircraft engine
manufacturer Rolls-Royce is utilizing specially tailored data-model to determine
‘automated schedule’ for aircraft engines maintenance that has a dramatic improvement
over the previous method. Rolls-Royce is now getting the benefit of analyzing larger
data-set that upturns the precision of predictive maintenance recommendations and react
swiftly to customer demands (Microsoft, 2017).
Cloud Computing
Big Data needs huge space to retrieve and analyze the data; and that data is
usually stored in the cloud, on-demand provision of computing services such as a server,
storage, network over the internet. Cloud has its particular infrastructure, platform, and
applications. However, the current trend is to move the digital firm’s software and
infrastructure systems to the cloud. So, digital firms need to reorganize IT-related
operations and gradually abandon legacy IT systems. As a result, lots of business
applications are being provided by third-party partners that also assist digital firms in
reviewing technical proposals and making technical due diligence.

Moreover, digital firms keep utilizing cloud computing to minimize their cost and
time, increase manageability and finally maximize the availability of their provided IT
related services to digital customers. Nevertheless, utilization of cloud-based solution
shifts focuses of IT towards cybersecurity, disaster recovery, data storage and backup
(Bongiorno et al., 2018).
Internet of Things (IoT)
Due to the nature of its infrastructure cloud computing is also connected to IoT.
IoT is a system of the interconnected computer or portable devices, mechanical such as
washing machine sensors and digital machines such as energy sensors, any other objects,
or even people. All of these objects or ‘things’ have unique identifiers (UIDs) and are
able to transmit data over the internet or mobile system automatically. IoT system
generates extensive data from any ‘thing’ or object like people, client devices such as
mobile devices and computers. As a capability of DT, IoT has already proved improved
business efficiencies, increased profitability, cost reductions, and the most significant
change in revenue stream (KPMG, 2016).
Lots of digital firms are putting in IoT platforms, networks, and infrastructure to
empower the new way of operating while testing and learning from experiments with
their digital customers. They have reduced the IoT disruption and now anticipating
business outcomes and adjusting their model based on results and digital customer
response. For instance, Amaury Sport Organization, part of French Media Group, has
placed trackers under the saddles of riders and so they are now able to track and provide
specific information to the fans about the race such as the speed of individual riders, their
position. As a result, Amaury has specially positioned themselves in the market (Jooste,
2017). On this ground; the popularity of IoT for DT is increasing day by day, and IDC
has also predicted that there will be 1.1 trillion US dollar total spending on IoT
worldwide by 2021 (KPMG, 2016).
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
IoT generates an enormous volume of data that is analyzed through Big Data and
AI. AI is a transformational technology capable of performing specific tasks like human
intelligence, for instance, visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and
translation between languages. Lots of digital firms are investing for R&D on different
branches of AI such as machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing,
robotics, pattern recognition, and knowledge management in exploring business
opportunities.
Many digital firms are adopting AI; cognitive computing - a combined system
capable of understanding human imagination and emotion and capable of managing
enormous data; and machine learning – an algorithm to enable software to improve its
performance. Regardless of types of AI, AI solves day-to-day business challenges based
on available data, algorithm, and training mechanism. For example, eCommerce
company like Amazon and Alibaba are the leaders of implementing AI in their
eCommerce solutions. They are now getting the benefit of dynamic pricing, machine
pushed sales, building customer loyalty and innovation to product and services.
International Data Corporation (IDC) has also predicted that there will be 52 billion US
dollar total spending on AI worldwide by 2021 (KPMG, 2016).

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
RPA, another type of AI, is software or a “robot”, configured to capture and
interpret applications for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering
responses and communicating with other digital systems. According to Accenture, RPA
increases 40% quality in customer outcomes, reduces 40% cycle time in delivery,
reduced 30%-80% processing cost and drives Return on Investment (ROI) in quarters
versus years (Accenture LLC, 2016).
There are several types of RPAs; for instance, it may generate an automatic
response to an email, some bots to automate jobs in an ERP system (Boulton, 2018). For
instance, robotics manufacturer KUKA connected 60,000 robotic devices robots to the
Microsoft cloud and is running advanced analytics to forecast machine failure before it
occurs. KUKA has minimized both planned and unplanned downtime – and such way
they are minimizing disruption (Microsoft, 2017). IDC has also predicted that there will
be 248 billion US dollar total spending on ‘robotic and drones’ worldwide by 2021
(KPMG, 2016).
Blockchain
While other DT capabilities have an issue with information security, blockchain
appears to secure them. Information on a blockchain is shared but transparent ledger
around the digital world, i.e., the records it retains open and purely certifiable.
Blockchain contains a chain of verifiable blocks consists of data, current block hash, and
previous block hash. Hash is like our fingerprint that is almost unique. Blocks are
always secure as changes or temptation is nearly impossible due to the nature of hashing
and ‘proof of work’ mechanism utilized in the blockchain. Any changes in data in the
block change the hash resulting in a mismatch of this hash with the hash of the next
block. Moreover, ‘proof of work’ is the mechanism of creating new blocks after
validating all hashes of the related blocks. Thus, blockchain keeps our data secure with
its hashes, ‘proof of work’ and distributed nature.
However, use-case of blockchain is evolving day-by-day. Recent utilizations of
blockchain are banking for non-accountholder, data security, and smart-contract.
Moreover, lots of projects are undergoing to utilize blockchain such as digital supply-
chain management, decentralized computing for IoT, trust management of insurance
companies, peer-to-peer ride sharing, e-notary, e-voting, government operations, public
benefits, healthcare, energy management, online music, retail systems, real estate,
crowdfunding and collecting taxes (Future Thinkers, 2017). The disruptive view of
blockchain is crystal clear by now. A survey result of KPMG shows that 50% of
corporate leaders to agree that blockchain is likely to disrupt their company (KPMG,
2016). The financial benefit of blockchain is that transactions are completed in real time
while confidentiality and integrity are fully assured. It also can ensure anti-money
laundering. Therefore, it is getting more popular in financial services industries.
Information Management
The emergence of information technology has changed the traditional strategies of
business process improvement even now the internet is independent of strategy (Dinkar,
2005) and information management was emphasized in all organization during the 1980s
(Boykin, 2017). IM is one of the pre-requirements of DT because DT engages the
extraction and exchange of data from other capabilities such as IoT, AI, RPA, blockchain
and the analysis as well as a conversion of that data into actionable information.
Likewise, Enterprise Information Management (EIM) has emerged as an advanced IM
based quality intervention which works across the organization. IM program lives in the
IT area, but it must not be an IT program. When information covers all aspects of an
enterprise, information is an asset.
Such an asset has some components which may vary according to organization
goal, type, location, socioeconomic context and so on. The main components include
business model, information handling and use techniques, information lifecycle,
application, technology, organizational changes, compliance, each information definition,
organizational culture, governance, managed content (Ladley, 2010). Each of these
primary components is different from each other and must interact with each other too.
These must be executed over a period of time consciously in a systematic way.
Figure 13: Information value Cycle throughout an Organization (Ladley, 2010)
In Figure 12, arrow signs are the organizational information process. When
information moves forward the value of that information increases. The presence of
information throughout all activities within an organization, adds economic value and
therefore contribute to business excellence. This similar cycle may be created in any
subject area in any organization.
However, such an organization-wide system is complicated for the managers and
executives to grasp correctly. Therefore, experts have been engaging in finding an easy
solution for the last 40 years (Bytheway, 2014a). Over time, a framework called
Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK) has been published (Bytheway,
2004). IMBOK postulates that it is a management framework that proposes a model
encompassing of ‘five domains of management, and four two-way interfaces’ between
the five as shown in the following figure (Figure-13) (Bytheway, 2014a). Thus, IMBOK
considers the concept of Information Management in the full context of business and
organizational strategy, management, and operations.
Figure 14: Bytheway’s Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK)

For this reason; because of complex nature of ‘information’, information is the
main concern of most digital firms for accomplishing the excellence because IM cares the
‘business with clear, documented, and effective data and information’ (Ladley, 2010).
Thus, digitally maintained IM could ensure competitive advance in developing unique
products, proprietary content, unique processes, and reliable service (M. E. Porter, 2001).
For that reason; IM practices must be evaluated and reinforced because the internet is the
strategic complement (M. E. Porter, 2001) and the information is an asset (Ladley, 2010).
While it is evident that information asset enhances DT and excellence, currently
most organizations or business firms are adopting digital means (Williams, Hardy, &
Schubert, 2014) for increasing organizational performance because proper utilization of
information speeds business excellence. A digital firm can either be a loser or a gainer
on the basis of how they approach and utilize IM because information helps each of all
members of a decision making body and decision making process (Entin et al., 1997,
p.565). On account of, failure to manage and govern data creates many problems and
incidents. In order to overcome failure, IT is used in all firms; and when IT and business
both cooperate, data becomes an asset (Gartner Inc., 2018). Then ‘uniformity, accuracy,
stewardship, semantic consistency and accountability of the enterprise’s official shared
master data’ can be ensured throughout the core entities of the organization (Gartner Inc.,
2018). Hence the concept of enterprise information management (EIM) comes into the
business, which says
EIM is the program that manages enterprise information asset to
support the business and improve value. EIM manages the plans,
policies, principles, frameworks, technologies, organizations, people,

and processes in an enterprise toward the goal of maximizing the
investment in data and content (Ladley, 2010).
Each of the capabilities as discussed earlier sections work very collaborated ways.
For instance, IoT generates a vast amount of data that are stored in Big Data; and Big
Data through data science is utilized for building an analytical model for prediction and
intelligent decision making, machine learning is also utilized for prediction while AI is
also utilized for anticritical decision making based on prediction generated by machine
learning. Thus, data and IM resemble a business within a business (Ladley, 2010)
because each of aforesaid capabilities needs to be managed through a series of data
related functions such as structured data management, unstructured data management, the
lineage of data from creation to disposal. Data quality, business processes, data
governance, and IM architecture also play a vital role in order to achieve DT that finally
leads to BE (Laudon & Laudon, 2013).
Digital Transformation (DT) for Business Excellence (BE)
As discussed earlier that BE cannot be achieved all of a sudden (Jha & Joshi,
2007). It is instead transformed over a period and through a combination of a gradual
process. The basis of this transformation is a disruptive innovation. IM plays a vital role
in each stage of this transformation process because information is one of the most
critical capabilities of DT and a digital firm needs to flourish based on the information.
Therefore, information must be managed and systematically assessed by technology-
enabled tools. That is why; previously focus of IT was technology, but now the focus is
information rather than mere technology (Drucker, 1999b).

Although, after the 1990s the innovations in organizes started to happen using
technology, the relationship between information and technology is that technology has
made information usable. Without information and technology, the innovation is almost
impossible at the modern time (Zhao, 2013). Oestreich (2011) mentioned that the
amount of data stored in any IT system becomes more than double every two years. On
account of, organizations are going to be digitalized. Knowledge worker’s productivity is
increasing gradually with the technology-enabled information. Whatever a worker is
supposed to do is decided based on the available information. For this reason;
information has become a valuable intangible asset for any digital firms. While
information is essential, managing information is also essential (Drucker, 1999a) in order
to achieve DT based BE.
Adapting BE Frameworks for Digital Firms
Amidst the highly competitive external environment, partially or fully
transformed digital firms must continuously search for new practical approaches to
enhance the capabilities – people, process and technology. More elaborately, digital
firms - IT-enabled business organizations – have to apply IoT, AI, robotics-based EIM in
order to sustain in the challenging world. The characteristics of a digital firm are that it
maintains relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, and other external partners
through digital technologies and employ some computerized programs such as Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP), Knowledge Management System (KMS), Enterprise Content
Management (ECM), and Warehouse Management System (WMS) and some others too
(Laudon & Laudon, 2013). Main business processes are executed through digital
networks covering the whole organization or linking external organizations (Laudon &
Laudon, 2013).
While it has already been justified that information has a vital role in TQM
process analysis and improvement (Dahlgaard, Kristensen, & Kanji, 2005). In addition,
Hunter et al. (2016) mentioned that information gives an avenue how to run, grow and
digitally transform the business. Considering the features and characteristics of the
digital firms, what BE frameworks may be developed or employed needs to be analyzed
critically. This section, therefore, summarizes the popular BE frameworks because each
Business Excellence framework is uniquely made to integrate the business excellence
philosophy into standard business practices. Naively, some organizations attempt to
achieve excellence without integrating philosophy and capability model into the
organizational practices (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004). In the process of transforming a
business usually, organizations adopt one of the popular business excellence frameworks
such as European Framework for Quality Management (EFQM), Deming Prize, Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). The Deming Prize was established in
Japan in 1951, the Malcolm Baldrige Award was established in the USA in 1988, the
European Quality Award was founded in 1992, and the Australian Quality Award was
founded in 1988 (Dahlgaard et al., 2005).
Many business firms are adopting different quality-based frameworks such as
ISO9001, Total Quality Management (TQM), Malcolm Baldrige, EFQM, Business
Process Engineering (BPR), performance excellence, Lean Thinking, Six Sigma for
resolving business challenges. Nevertheless, in many cases, business challenges persist
until today even in digital firms though digital firms pretend to be fully automated and
paperless. In digital firms, information is the lifeblood. Hence, information needs to be
actively managed, governed, directed to add value to the stakeholders. Therefore, digital
firms can be assessed with DT based BE framework which addresses business process as
well as information. ISACA publishes COBIT suggesting to enable information for
achieving excellence. In the following section, the relevance of information processing
in BE models is discussed.
Deming Prize
Deming Prize was founded by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers
(JUSE) who introduced Deming Prize in honor of Dr. Edward Deming – the founder of
TQM philosophy. For the contributions to the improvement of quality and productivity,
the Deming Prize is given. Deming Prize was based on a self-evaluation on three critical
areas of an organization including services, policies, and strategies related to the quality
management and lastly problems and barriers to the quality. In 1982, Deming published
a paper entitled ‘Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position’ whereby he explained
his philosophy of management based on his popular ‘Fourteen Points’.
It influenced the contemporary best practices in organizational practices and
quality management. The main issues and concerns of Deming prize are Policy,
standardization, organization, and its management, control, education and dissemination,
quality assurance, collection, dissemination, and use of information on quality, results,
analysis of data, planning for the future (Jha & Joshi, 2007). Nevertheless, the outcome
of the Deming Prize did not address the financial issues of the awarded organizations.
Perhaps because of these reasons some other assessments and business excellence
frameworks emerged in the history after the 1980s.

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA)
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) was founded in the
USA in 1988 (Goetsch & Davis, 2014) for mainly improving the competitiveness of
American companies (Brown, 1994). Based on the philosophy of TQM and the
principles of continuous improvement MBNQA has seven momentous areas including
‘leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis, and knowledge
management; workforce focus; processes management and business results’ (Toma &
Naruo, 2017, p. 569). Every year, up to three winners in each of six categories including
manufacturing businesses, service businesses, small businesses, educational
organizations, healthcare organizations, non-profit organizations. Educational
institutions and healthcare organizations are also able to apply for the Baldrige Award
(Brown, 1994).
Both of the MBNQA and EFQM have equal acceptance among the organizations
concerning guidance to implement the TQM (del Alonso-Almeida & Fuentes-Frías,
2012). Like EFQM, the MBNQA has 50% emphasize on the process or approach, and
50% emphasize on the results. Here approach means the way an organization does things
or runs an organization (Brown, 1994). Thus by implementing MBNQA criteria, Any
organization can enhance their processes, their products or services, and their
performance after obtaining this Quality Award (Lazaros et al., 2017). In the course of
assessment, four aspects of the process are examined such as ADLI, i.e., approach,
deployment, learning, and integration. In assessing the integration aspect, linkage among
systems of an organization is the most crucial part of the Baldrige Award (Brown, 1994).
The organizations which implement the process improvement systems such as Lean
Enterprise System, Six Sigma methodology, Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) methodology,
any standard from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO; e.g., 9000 or
14000) have higher scores in the assessment of MBNQA. Lastly, it may be quoted,
Baldrige promotes a systems perspective. A systems perspective
means managing all the components of your organization as a unified
whole to achieve ongoing success. The system’s building blocks and
integrating mechanism are the core values and concepts, the seven
interrelated Criteria categories, and the scoring guidelines (Baldrige
Performance Excellence Program, 2015).
European Frameworks for Quality Management (EFQM)
EFQM is the European Quality Award. In the year 1989, fourteen CEOs from
European leading organizations decided to initiate European Frameworks for Quality
Management (EFQM). It is an excellence model first published in 1992 with nine
criteria: five indicate enablers and four indicate the processes. The report says that about
41 national awards are based on EFQM compared to 16 national awards are based on
Baldrige (EFQM, 2016). EFQM aimed at improving the competitiveness of member
organizations on an international level. It wanted to balance enablers and results with
equal significance like the two sides of a coin. In this regard of balancing, the Balanced
Scorecard (BSC) resembles the EFQM’s Business Excellence Model (BEM) because
both measure ‘an organization’s performance to drive organizational improvement –
generally by highlighting current shortfalls in performance to management teams’
(Andersen, Lawrie, & Shulver, 2000, p. 1). Nevertheless, EFQM needs careful review in
the context of ‘fast-moving, networked, digital business environments’ (EFQM, 2016) …

That is why; information management is an important issue and given particular weight
in most of the national quality award (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004).
Control Objective for Information and Related Technology: COBIT
A report on 25-year EFQM excellence practices mentions that in the highly
competitive business world, the digital technology, new technologies, globalization, and
evolutions in client and consumer behavior have ‘risk’ (EFQM, 2016). In order to
manage and govern IT, COBIT was developed by ISACA and released in 1996. Apart
from risk, ISACA (2018) explains the relationship between business process and
information very elaborately as information cycle. ISACA (2018) also argues that
business process produces data; data transforms into information; information transforms
into knowledge; and finally, knowledge creates value for the enterprise. However, in
reality, these steps do not happen one after another because it is often found that little
information or ineffectively designed IM cannot connect business objectives. However,
if IM is everyone’s business and if it is one of the core business activities, then it creates
firm’s real value by defining defined edging competitive advantage (M. E. Porter, 2001).
For instance, that strategy evidently clicked in Toyota. Toyota is actively driving
growth and innovation in IM by integrating new information processing technologies
while reacting to various changes in the external environment since the 2000s.
Moreover, Toyota is moving ahead with global standardization of all business application
systems and making better use of information. It has also instituted structural reform of
its system development and maintenance for even better utilizing its IM (Batal, 2014).
The recent version is the COBIT 2019 which has six principles, e.g., provide
stakeholder value, holistic approach, dynamic governance system, governance distinct

from management, tailor to enterprise needs, end-to-end governance system; and seven
components, e.g., process, organizational structure, principle-policy-framework,
information, culture-ethics-behavior, people-skill-competencies, and service-
infrastructure-application. These principles and components let COBIT be applicable in
commercial, non-profit and government organization. COBIT optimizes information and
fulfills the needs of stakeholders. Despite the fact, COBIT prioritizes IT services and
process management, COBIT does not measure the quality of the application of
Information Technology Governance and Service Management (ITGSM). Hence,
COBIT can complement with other BE frameworks because they do include the
appropriate mechanisms and self-assessment method (Sánchez Peña, Fernández Vicente,
& Ocaña, 2013). For example, EFQM can measure the quality of IT services and process
improvement through the criteria of leadership, policy, strategy (Haes & Grembergen,
2015; ISACA, 2018).
How to Bring EoT for Digital Firms
Some proven business excellence models have been discussed above indicating
that every business excellence model addresses strategies, practices, and stakeholder-
related performance results related to that given business. It is also clear from the above
discussion that no single ‘most effective or best BE’ model may be prescribed as there
are more than hundred process improvement initiatives. Similarly, there is no unique
direction to achieve BE status. Therefore, assessment of a BE means measuring the level
of ‘deployment’ of a particular BE within an organization (Mann, Adebanjo, & Tickle,
2011). In order to achieve a BE, a digital firm must ensure that most of the core values
are embedded in it considering the dynamic business environment, culture, and its current
position.
In this backdrop, it is true that digital firms are one kind of corporate enterprise.
It is relatively a new trend to ‘enable both business and IT people to execute their
responsibilities in creating value from IT-enabled business investments’ (Haes &
Grembergen, 2015). Digital firms have such characteristics and features which are
different from other organizations. For example, digital firms need to overcome first IT-
related barriers to managing information at the entire enterprise level. The modern
business world has already experienced massive attention in this regard. Modern
practices must be different from the traditional ones. Such as traditionally, a particular
body in a firm used to handle a particular type of information separately such as
structured, unstructured and tacit information. This method is contrary to the enterprise-
wide content management systems. IBM software company introduced some traditional
content management systems to overcome IM related problems such as enterprise content
management (ECM), business process management (BPM), customer experience
management (CEM), and business intelligence (BI).
Currently, most digital firms are concentrating enterprise-wide content
management system which integrates all structured, unstructured and tacit information.
Moreover, all IM systems discussed earlier concludes that information shall be
transparent for getting most of the benefit from it. For instance, digital firms like Distell,
comprehends that there is value beyond improved efficiencies, reduced costs and achieve
competitive advantage in connecting enterprise information and making it more

transparent (Barrenechea & Jenkins, 2015). Moreover, transparent information is a kind
of currency for DT.
As BE can be achieved in few other ways, digital firms may choose to achieve BE
based on DT where information currency is a capacity. As technology is emerging and
getting better, faster and cheaper day-by-day, DT based BE framework i.e. “EoT –
Excellence of Things” model has been developed based on combination of few categories
such as people (CoT), process (LoT) and IT capabilities (DoT) for adding value in digital
firms in the era of information.
Enablers of EoT for Digital Firms
EoT has three ‘Enablers’ or ‘of things’ i.e. CoT (Corporate-Entrepreneurship of
Things), LoT (Lean of Things) and DoT (Data of Things). Enabler or ‘of the thing’ is
anything that assists EoT to add business value. CoT is entrepreneurship within a large
business firm including working on a special idea or project and developing the project
like an entrepreneur would but inside an established business firm. CoT is also known as
‘Intrapreneurship’. Similarly, LoT includes any lean related things such as Six Sigma
philosophy, reduction of waste, customer satisfaction, Kaizen tools and techniques,
breakthrough improvement, and so on.
Moreover, DoT also includes anything related to quality information and IT
capabilities such as information services, Information Technology, management
information system, data science, BI (Business Intelligence), business analytics. This
part of EoT is very vital as this provides quality information for decision making. A
survey was taken at a recent Compliance, Governance, and Oversight Counsel summit -
shows that approximately 25% of information stored in organizations has real business
value, while 5% is stored as business records and about 1% is retained due to a litigation
hold (Smallwood, 2014). This may imply that about 69% of information kept in most
companies may have no business value. On that grounds, for the sake of DT, utilization
of an EIM framework is getting popularity day-by-day. This research proposes a DT
based BE to accomplish Excellence of Things (EoT), and this study conceptualizes that
enterprise information must not be managed in an isolated way, but enterprise-wide
integrated CoT, LoT and DoT must capitalize the enterprise information. Following is
the detailed discussion on CoT, LoT, and DoT.
Corporate-Entrepreneurship of Things (CoT) in Details
CoT is entrepreneurship within a large business. For example, in an established
business some people may think of a unique idea or project and developing the project
like distinguished entrepreneurship. So, CoT is also known as ‘Intrapreneurship’.(Zhao,
2013) Almost everyday innovation is undertaken in every corporate business (Ries,
2011). Drucker (1999b) utters that information itself triggers most of the innovation and
productivity among the people involved in the management because information is a
strategic element. Hence, corporate entrepreneurship emerges if the information relating
to corporate leadership, strategy, mission and vision, fair treatment is open and available.
Moreover, ‘organizational culture, corporate structure, venture selection, team formation,
venture programs, supportive infrastructure, sustainable venture development, and
positive learning cycles’ (Zhao, 2013) shall be available and taken care of by the
corporate. Entrepreneurs are always aware of the rule of the organization and innovate
effective programs. That is why; corporate entrepreneurs need acceptance and
recognition (Deloitte & Deloitte Digital, 2015; Rohrbeck, 2009)

However, digitalization can allow CoT to improve performance, productivity and
achieve outcomes that go beyond human capabilities. Advances in robotics, AI, and
machine learning are progressing new age of digitalization. Deployment of digitalization
in the workplace has already begun, and it is observed that technology has matched or
outperformed humans on some of the 18 capabilities including information retrieval,
gross motor skills, and optimization and planning, many other capabilities require more
technological development (McKinsey, 2017). McKinsey report also depicts the fact that
digitalization is boosting up the global productivity in the following figure (Figure-15):
Figure 15: McKensey’s Digitalization and Productivity
Lean of Things (LoT) in Details
LoT refers to Lean of thinking. The initial concept of Lean is to reduce waste in
order to reduce the cost and satisfy the customer requirements. In the early 1920s when
time and motion studies were developing, Lean Six Sigma techniques started to flourish
(Bentley & Davis, 2010). Though Six-Sigma and Lean are two concepts to some extent,
these have similar direction and application (Held, 1986). Some books use Lean and Six
Sigma together; for example ‘A Guide to Lean Six Sigma Management Skills’ (Gitlow,
2009).
An American company – Motorola - introduced Six Sigma as a more powerful
version of TQM during the 1980s (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Six Sigma may be called the
‘successor of TQM’ which is fundamentally a ‘methodology for process improvement’
(Baškarada, 2009). This method first collects data rigorously and analyze it with an aim
to reducing costs and improving value by stopping defect production (L. J. Porter &
Tanner, 2004). Here ‘Sigma (σ) is a statistical parameter that measures the standard
deviation of a group of data, associated with a quality characteristic, from its average (X)’
(Bhote, 2002, p. 4). Based on the collected data, a bell-shaped curve is drawn where up
to six standard deviations are considered, and whatever is beyond Six Sigma (σ), i.e., six
standard deviations are defective. Therefore, in practice, Six Sigma is defined as
Six Sigma is a fact-based, data-driven philosophy of improvement
that values defect prevention over defect detection. It drives
customer satisfaction and bottom-line results by reducing
variation and waste, thereby promoting a competitive advantage.
It applies anywhere variation and waste exist, and every
employee should be involved (Held, 1986).
Like DMAIC, Six Sigma is well known for its capacity in process improvement.
The six steps are as follows:
01) To identify what the customers require
02) To classify the products according to the critical characteristics

03) To define the maximum limit of each characteristic
04) To determine who will control the said characteristics
05) To determine what is the variation or difference between the two products’
characteristics in terms of process
06) If necessary, to change the design or process of the product (Goetsch & Davis,
2014)
Many organizations are implementing Six Sigma to reduce waste and got success.
For example, in 1988, Motorola achieved Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for
its greater contributions in putting Six Sigma concepts into practice. Other than Six
Sigma, there is Lean. While Motorola implemented Six-Sigma, Toyota implemented
Lean (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990) Zhao (2013) summarized five generations of
innovation, and she found the fifth generation started in 1990 with the characteristic of
lean innovation with is technology-enabled innovation. In this phase, information is
processed parallelly or real time. Lean is to give greater value to the customers by using
fewer resources. Lean thinking is to eliminate waste which does not add any value to the
customers. For this waste elimination one has to undergo process improvement by
following some steps, value and principles for example teamwork, flow systems, pull
systems, reduced lead time (Held, 1986). Lean and Six Sigma has slight differences such
as firstly, ‘Lean focuses on waste reduction, whereas Six Sigma emphasizes variation
reduction’; secondly, ‘Lean achieves its goals by using less technical tools such as
kaizen, workplace organization, and visual controls, whereas Six Sigma tends to use
statistical data analysis, design of experiments, and hypothesis tests’ (Held, 1986).
With the combination of Lean and Six Sigma, a new practice has emerged which
is called Lean Six Sigma (LSS). The LSS is a methodology like Six Sigma and Lean
which encompass the entire organization and observes with an aim to eliminate nine
kinds of wastes namely defects, overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory,
motion, over-processing, under-utilized employees, and behavior waste (Voehl,
Harrington, Mignosa, & Charron, 2014, p. 10).
Unlike the above three process improvement methods, the Kaizen is more
microscopic. Kaizen is a Japanese term that means continuous improvement. The
specialty of Kaizen is ‘doing little things better and setting and achieving increasingly
higher standards (Held, 1986)’. For the implementing Kaizen, a small team is assigned to
the project. Kaizen has many models for implementation. More importantly after
applying Kaizen in an organization, if it fails, it does not do any significant harm to the
system.
However, the implementation of digital technologies into LoT is only a vital part
of a digital firm. Technology adds additional value to the business by satisfying
customers and other stakeholders. So, in order to further transform a digital firm for BE,
a digital firm shall focus on reshaping customer value propositions; and better interact
and collaborate with customers by utilizing the appropriate digital technologies (Berman,
2012).
Data of Things (DoT) in Details
Data of Things refer to the set of data related that generated by DT capabilities
such as mobile, big data, cloud, IoT, AI, RPA, blockchain, and IM which an enterprise
possesses to gain business insight. It has been earlier mentioned that prior to every
enterprise transformation initiative, all enterprise data asset must be utilized (Vayghan,
Garfinkle, Walenta, Healy, & Valentin, 2007). On this ground; like CoT and LoT, DoT
is also considered one of the enablers of excellence of things (EoT) in measuring and
achieving the business excellence (Bytheway, 2014a; Gartner Inc., 2012; Sánchez Peña et
al., 2013). Without data management or information management, modern enterprise
transformation or business excellence is no more possible in the 21st-century world. For
example, without data analysis, sometimes information needs are not clearly understood
throughout the enterprise because the business functions of information and information
users are not clear to stakeholders (ISACA, 2013). The lack of understanding of
information directives is solved when data is stored, managed, analyzed holistically and
adequately. On that grounds, currently, most digital firms are concentrating enterprise-
wide content management system which integrates all structured, unstructured and tacit
information. From this point of view, DoT shall enable business excellence and lead the
organization to fulfill business expectations.
Data of things are related to information governance (IG). IG is not only crucial
for company management, but it is responsible for any crisis. For example, a financial
crisis happens mostly due to regulatory compliance instructions and the failure to ensure
prompt and improved decision-making process. That is why; recent global financial
phenomenon has put artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analysis in the
spotlight and made these things related to information governance. Therefore, ultimately,
the practice of master data management (MDM) i.e. using or reusing data is a critical
factor to achieving effective information governance (Gartner Inc., 2012) because using
or reusing data as an enterprise asset happens at an enterprise level to initiate any

enterprise transformation activity (Vayghan et al., 2007). This practice of data-based
business analysis is called business data analytics (BA). The purpose of BA is to gain
insights and drive business panning from performing continuous iterative exploration and
investigation of past business achievement with the help of some skills, technologies,
practices. However, among all other IT capabilities IoT, AI, and robotics are influencing
DT based BE, customer interaction and social benefit as shown in the following figure
(Figure-16) (KPMG, 2016).
Figure 16: KPMG’s Key IT Capabilities for BT
Integration among CoT, LoT, and DoT
Digital transformation by integrating CoT, LoT and DoT may enable the business
excellence centrally and add value to the business. Integration makes CoT, LoT and DoT
work in harmony in order to achieve the principal objective, i.e., to add value to the
business. CoT, LoT and DoT do not work in silos somewhat they are unified in such a
way that they can transform a digital firm to business excellence based on DT. A digital
firm can implement EoT (Excellence of Things) by integrating corporate

entrepreneurship, lean philosophy, and EIM in order to add value to digital firms. The
EoT also has a capability assessment model emerged from on ISO/IEC 15504 and
COBIT 2019.
Capability Assessment Models for Digital Firms
Information is needed at every level of the enterprise including operational,
management and governance levels. As such, information contributes to the achievement
of overall enterprise objectives (ISACA, 2013). There must be a BE framework and
capability assessment model to drive transformation in the organization by satisfying
customers or stakeholders, achieving innovation capacity, customer experience
excellence and competitive benefits otherwise digital firms cannot gain benefit from their
investment made on information (Trombley, 2018). The author also depicts the facts that
30% of UK business firms, 48% of North American firms and 52% of European business
firms fail to release value from their information regardless of size, geography or sector
due to lack of skills, technical capabilities, tools like capability models and number of
cultural factors (Petley & Trombley, 2015). A similar picture is depicted in a report by
MIT Sloan and Deloitte (Figure-17). The report also shows that very few numbers of
industries are ahead of digital transformation and they score higher than others
concerning maturity or capability (Gerald C. Kane, Palmer, Phillips, Kiron, & Buckley,
2015). The report also shows that the highest score is above six while the lowest score is
below five. So, the digital firms that score below five can measure its status and prepare
a roadmap to breakthrough other digital firms that are having score more than six. That
is why; a capability assessment model for digital firms is a necessary tool to assess its
current state of capabilities and to set a target for future state towards digital
transformation.
Figure 17: Digital Capability and Maturity of MIT and Deloitte
Adapting COBIT for the Capability Assessment Model for Digital Transformation
As discussed in the earlier section, a capability assessment model emphasizes on
digital firm’s performance (deriving business value and meeting business objectives) as
well as conformance (meeting compliance requirements and protecting information
assets) (Williams et al., 2014). Conformance is also very strongly focused on SOX
(Sarbanes-Oxley Act) (Laudon & Laudon, 2013). COSO (Committee of Sponsoring
Organizations) suggested compliance framework for SOX, but very few emphases on IT,
and so ISACA, later on, develops COBIT (Common Objective for Information & related
Technology).
If anything is not possible to measure, it is also not possible to manage. While
information is an asset for the digital firms, information needs to be managed and
assessed appropriately throughout information’s lifecycle (ISACA, 2013). Excellence for
digital firms depends on the utilization of information that is utilized as one of the
capabilities of DT that finally leads to BE. ISACA publishes COBIT suggesting to
enable information that can work for BE.
The digital firm needs a robust EIM capability which will further advance a
digital firm in the path of DT and assists to achieve BE. In order to assess the business
excellence for any digital firms, a capability assessment model can be built which aims
business excellence through integrating DT (Ladley, 2010). In this case, COBIT can be a
good choice because COBIT as an enterprise IT governance framework is also an integral
part of information governance that is in turn a subset of corporate governance. In
consequence, COBIT can be first fitted into DT boundary, restructured as a capability
assessment model and then can be integrated into EoT.
It is imperative to mention that IG (Information Governance), IM (Information
Management) and EIM (Enterprise Information Management) have hair-line differences
while all of them exists for different purposes. IG is a part of corporate governance;
based on processes, roles and policies, standards and metrics; that is established in order
to meet regulatory, compliance and legislation demand of today’s information
management (Smallwood, 2014). Similarly, according to ISACA, IG ensures enterprise
objectives to be achieved by evaluating information stakeholder needs, conditions and

options through the acquisition and management of information resources; directing
information management capabilities through prioritization and decision making; and
monitoring performance and compliance against agreed-on direction and objectives
(ISACA, 2013).
On the other hand, IM is a technique of using technology to gather, process and
condense information with a goal of efficient management (Gartner Inc., 2018).
According to ISACA, IM plans, builds, runs and monitors the process, practices,
projects, and capabilities that obtain, control, control, deliver and improve the value of
information resources, in alignment with the direction set by the information governance
body. EIM is a combined domain for organizing, unfolding and governing information
resources across organizational and technological boundaries to increase productivity,
transparency and business insight (Gartner Inc., 2018). Similarly, Ladley defines EIM as
the program that manages enterprise information asset to support the business and
increase value by managing principles, policies, frameworks, technologies, organizations,
people, and processes in an enterprise in order to maximize the investment in data and
content (Ladley, 2010). ISACA also agrees that Information is one of the top most
resources of the organization that delivers benefits to the enterprise if the organization
meets necessary quality goals (ISACA, 2013). Such a robust EIM as one of the
capabilities for DT has already been proved in Toyota, the most prominent lean applier.
A helicopter-view of IM along with lean journey of Toyota also shows that IM played a
vital role since 1954 (while they introduced first IBM computers) in Toyota’s success
(Toyota, n.d.). EIM is the basis of the famous lean manufacturing system, TPS (Toyota
Production System), in Toyota – that supports and transform the business to eliminate
waste and to continually improve production in Toyota (What Is Driving Toyota, n.d.).
Recently Toyota’s priority is Digital Quality Management (DQM) as a part of the digital
business transformation that plays a vital role in ensuring their digital standards are
implemented, performance is measurable, and teams have the right tools to accomplish
their jobs (Crowpeak, 2018).
Implications of BE for EoT in Digital Firms
Based on the three enablers of EoT, there can be a comparison of BE model’s
theme with EOT enablers. Peter and Tanner developed core themes of BE framework
that can be further classified as EoT’s enablers for better understanding enablers as
follows (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004):
Table 2:
Core Theme of BE frameworks with EoT’s enablers:
EoT Core Themes Description
Enablers
CoT 1. Leadership Setting a clear direction and values for the business firm,
creating customer focus, and empowering the firm and its
people in the pursuit of excellence are critical to all
excellence approaches.
2. Strategic Stressing the importance of strategic development,
alignment alignment and planning and differentiating TQM-type
programs from other strategic programs.

Enablers
3. Organizational Stimulating individual and Organizational learning,
learning, innovation, and improvement via useful information and
innovation, and knowledge sharing.
improvement
4. Partnership Developing longer-term strategic mutually beneficial
development partnerships including customers, suppliers and education
firms and focusing on delivering sustained value for the
partners.
5. Results focus Creating value for all the key stakeholders, including
customers, employees, suppliers, partners, the public and
the community; and balancing the needs of all these key
stakeholders
6. Social Focusing on a responsibility to the public, ethical
responsibility behavior and good citizenship for the longer-term interest
of the
business firm
7. Customer focus Focusing on customer loyalty and retention by
understanding the voice of the current and potential
customers.
Enablers
8. People focus Focusing on the knowledge, skills, creativity, and
motivation of its people and creating a culture of trust and
empowerment.
LoT 9. Fact-based Focusing all excellence approaches on designing
processes processes to meet customer requirements, systematically
management managing processes based on facts, and improving
processes based on customer feedback as well as feedback
from the process itself.
DoT 10. Information Explained as a part of Organizational learning,
and Knowledge innovation, and improvement
Management
The above table shows that BE themes and EoT enablers fit well. Now, a
comparison between EoT enablers and COBIT components can be seen to link COBIT
and BE via EoT.
Implications of COBIT for EoT in Digital Firms
These enablers, as well as the themes, are adequately reflected into the core BE
frameworks as well as in COBIT. However, COBIT is initially developed as Enterprise
IT Governance and Management framework, not as BE purpose. COBIT 2019 also has 7
(seven) ‘generic components’ that can be linked to EoT enablers presented in Table-3.
Table 3:
COBIT framework with EoT’s enablers
Enablers COBIT 2019 Brief Description
Components
CoT 1. Organizational They are the critical decision-making entities in a
Structures business firm.
2. Culture, ethics, They refer to the set of individual and collective
and behavior behaviors within a firm. They are very often
underestimated as a success factor in governance and
management activities.
3. People, skills, They are related to human resource, its skill set and
and competencies relevant competencies that are required for successful
completion of all activities; for making correct
decisions and for taking corrective measures.
4. Principles, They are the channel for governance body and
policies, and management to transform the desired behavior into
frameworks practical guidance for day-to-day operations.
LoT 5. Processes It is a set of activities that are manipulated to produce a
particular output such as service capabilities or
products.
DoT 6. Information It deals with all information relevant to a business firm
such as structured or unstructured, formalized or
formalized, automated or semi-automated.

Components
7. Services, It incorporates related technology, hardware, and
infrastructure, software that assist a firm to process its information and
and applications services.
The above table also shows that COBIT widely covers the DoT enabler of EoT
framework. It does not imply that COBIT can be easily fitted in as BE model instead it
also requires lots of modifications to be qualified as BE model. COBIT is an enterprise
IT governance framework that is an integral part of information governance that is in turn
a subset of corporate governance. COBIT can first be fitted into EIM boundary that is
one of the vibrant capabilities of DT and then can be integrated into EoT. It is imperative
to mention that several capabilities of DT (Digital Transformation) such as IG
(Information Governance), IM (Information Management) and EIM (Enterprise
Information Management) have hair-line differences while all of them exists for different
purposes. IG is a part of corporate governance; based on processes, roles and policies,
standards and metrics; that is established in order to meet regulatory, compliance and
legislation demand of today’s information management (Smallwood, 2014).
Similarly, according to ISACA, IG ensures enterprise objectives to be achieved
by evaluating information stakeholder needs, conditions and options through the
acquisition and management of information resources; directing information management
capabilities through prioritization and decision making; and monitoring performance and
compliance against agreed-on direction and objectives (ISACA, 2013). On the other
hand, IM is a technique of using technology to collect, process and condense information
with a goal of efficient management (Gartner Inc., 2018). According to ISACA, IM
plans, builds, runs and monitors the process, practices, projects and capabilities that
acquire, control, protect, deliver and improve the value of information resources, in
alignment as directed by the information governance body (ISACA, 2013). EIM is a
combined domain for organizing, unfolding and governing information resources across
organizational and technological boundaries to increase productivity, transparency and
business insight (Gartner Inc., 2018).
Similarly, Ladley (2010) defines EIM as the program that manages enterprise
information asset to support the business and increase value by managing principles,
policies, frameworks, technologies, organizations, people, and processes in an enterprise
in order to maximize the investment in data and content (Ladley, 2010). ISACA also
agrees that information is one of the leading resources of the organization that delivers
benefits to the enterprise if the organization meets necessary quality goals (ISACA,
2013). Such a robust EIM has already been proved in Toyota, the most prominent lean
applier. A helicopter-view of IM along with lean journey of Toyota also shows that IM
played a vital role since 1954 (while they introduced first IBM computers) in Toyota’s
success (Toyota, n.d.). EIM is the basis of the famous lean manufacturing system, TPS
(Toyota Production System), in Toyota – that supports and enables the business processes
to eliminate waste and to continually improve production in Toyota (What Is Driving
Toyota, n.d.).
As previously discussed, EIM is one of the capabilities of DT framework that can
sit at the top of DT layers to integrate the corporate governance system to build up DT
based BE, i.e., EoT (Excellence of Things). Moreover, EoT has few ‘cores’ and ‘non-
core’ elements. The ‘core’ elements are Principles, EoT Reference Model (ERM) with
Transformative Focus Areas (TFA) that are building blocks of digital transformation,
EoT Capability Assessment Model (ECAM) and finally Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver
(LEAD) implementation cycle whereas the ‘non-core’ elements are Drivers, Enablers and
Value Addition. These are discussed in details in Chapter-5.
Summary
The global challenges are raising, and the market is disrupted due to changes in
product characteristics such as modality and functionality; demand characteristics such as
market composition and customer preferences; and industry characteristics such as value
chain complexities and regulatory conditions. Also, better, cheaper and faster
technological advances are the primary root cause that influences such disruptions. As
mentioned earlier that IM is one of the essential capabilities of DT that can connect other
technologies to get insight while it is highly focused in ‘COBIT5 for Information’. That
is based on Committee Of Sponsoring Organization (COSO) while COSO is based on
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).
However, there is no straightforward DT framework directly derived from either
SOX, COSO or COBIT that achieves BE in digital firms. In consequence, BE and
COBIT criteria are compared, and links between them are established to develop DT
based BE, EoT framework through its ‘core’ and non-core elements. With the different
types of elements, EoT can overcome business challenges, ensure compliance and brings
excellence in the digital firm through digital transformation. A similar technique like
EoT has already applied in several world renown companies to achieve BE, and Toyota
has already shown it.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The purpose of the study is to explore the meaning of Excellence of Things for
Digital Firms. Secondly, the elements of DT based BE has been explored through an
interview. After finalizing the research questions, it is essential to find a way of
investigating the research questions and problems (Kumar, 2011). The method of
investigation varies according to the research design which means planning of data
collection, data analysis, and result interpretation.
Research Design
The research design is an intentional, logical and clear choice by the
researchers themselves (Jonker & Pennink, 2009). In brief, research design is ‘a
procedural plan that is adopted by the researcher to answer questions validly, objectively,
accurately and economically’ (Kumar, 2011). There are several research designs, such as
experimental and non-experimental, hypothesis testing, cross-sectional, longitudinal, .
(Kothari, 2004). Conventionally qualitative research designs are applied if the nature of
the research questions is exploratory (Uew Flick, von Kardorff, & Steinke, 2004).
‘Exploratory’ means to uncover the life worlds from the understanding, perception, and
experience of the people who participate in the research. In other words, if the purpose of
the study is to explore the knowledge around the topic then qualitative research method is
appropriate (Jonker & Pennink, 2009).
Appropriateness of Design
This study applies qualitative research methods because, in qualitative research
method, the researcher seeks and investigates the issue at hand with his/her own eyes and
construct new contents and then adds with the body of knowledge. That is why;
qualitative research is called constructivism (Saldana, 2011). The qualitative research
method is the recognition of the existence of pluralistic belief in the realm of knowledge.
Hence, it is one of the postmodern research methods (Uwe Flick, 2009). Qualitative
research has many types such as case study, phenomenological, ethnographic, grounded
theory, action research. In this study, the answers to some questions are sought which fit
the phenomenological research type because the researcher firstly explores the meaning
of EoT for digital firms. Usually ‘the phenomenological perspective seeks to determine
the meaning of a construct’ (Willis, 2015). In addition, the following questions are also
asked the informants to give their opinions such as:
1. To explore the things that drive digital firms to accept EoT, a digital transformation-
based framework for business excellence.
2. To find how LoT, DoT and CoT enable EoT in digital firms.
3. To explore the aspects of EoT regarding add value to the business of digital firms.
Feasibility of Design
Even though every study has its specific challenges, this study has some
challenges too. Nevertheless, according to the aims of the study are achievable because
the theoretical foundation to explain the concept has been written, and relevant experts
for the data collection are found too. The unseen problem related to the timely delivery
of the responses remains because the experts selected for the study are highly occupied
and very busy.
Panel of Experts
The panel of experts is from a different educational and professional background.
They are from several industries too. However, they have one similarity that is they
either are overseeing or used to oversee information management (or information
technology) function of digital firms. There are 5 (five) members in the panel. Their
detailed demographic information is depicted below:
Figure 18: Education Level of Panel
Figure 19: Discipline of Panel

Figure 20: Position of the Panel
Figure 21: Industry of the Panel

Sampling Frame of Participants
All participants work on the same document (Jonker & Pennink, 2009) and then
six to twelve participants shall be selected for data collection. Accordingly, the survey
was uploaded to ‘Google Form’ after finalizing the questionnaire by the panel of experts.
The survey link was sent to 15 (fifteen) participants who are either IM or IT senior
professionals working in different industries such as financials, education,
telecommunications or ITeS (IT-enabled Service). However, 12 out of 15 responded to
the survey questionnaire. The survey was separately sent to the known colleagues,
former colleagues or friends who are undoubtedly senior IT/ IM professionals but very
closely involved in the business. Some of them are from Bangladesh, Afghanistan or
USA. Participants are contacted from different countries to comprehend any cultural
influences too. The demographic information of the participants is shown below:
Figure 22: Education Level of Participants
Figure 23: Discipline of Participants

Figure 24: Position of the Participants
Figure 25: Industry of the Participants

Informed Consent
All participants voluntarily participated in the survey. There was a clear
statement regarding the survey that explains that purpose of the survey. It also describes
that they can drop the survey at any point in time. It was also clearly stated that their
identity would not be published. There are two informed consents such as Appendix-F
depicts the detail informed consent of the expert panel whereas Appendix-G shows the
explicit consent of the participants.
Confidentiality
In this study, the Delphi method is applied for data collection. This method
requires to disclose all responses to all respondents. Hence; maintaining careful
anonymity is vital in order to ensure unbiased input from all participants. Therefore,
pseudonyms will be used when mentioning names are necessary. All data is kept
confidential and used only for the sake of research and knowledge.
Geographic Location
In this study is not limited to any geographical location instead it expands to
different countries such as the USA, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Such a combination
may give us insight into EoT in different countries, different industries, and different
culture.
Instrumentation
According to the Delphi method, the instrument is created and validated by the
expert panel themselves through several stages and process (Sekayi & Kennedy, 2017).
For that reason, the four-round is applied to develop the instrument and validate both
instrument and response. Detailed of the instrument is given in the appendix. The
rounds are as follows:
Round 1 –Brainstorming with open-ended questions on the topic
Round 2 – Presentation of the list of statements to the expert panel (Appendix-B)
Round 3 – Presentation of the final draft questionnaire with feedback to the expert
panel for endorsement (Appendix-C)
Round 4 – Presentation of Final Questionnaire to the expert panel (Appendix-D)
Data Collection
There are several techniques for collecting data in phenomenological research.
One of the methods used in business studies is the Delphi method (Jonker & Pennink,
2009). This method is also used in action research needed to discover the systematic or
strategic problem in the management of an organization (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison,
2007, p. 309). Although there is a disagreement whether Delphi Method is suitable to be
applied in qualitative research, Habibi, Sarafrazi, & Izadyar (2014) discussed in length
and concluded that Delphi method could be applied in qualitative research design. The
reason of calling Delphi method as a qualitative method is that in this method a group of
selected experts or panelist contribute in constructing the knowledge after involving in
several round discussion until the researcher satisfies (Sekayi & Kennedy, 2017).
The definition of the Delphi itself suggests a set of processes and procedures
Delphi may be categorized as a technique for structuring a group
communication process so that the process is effective in allowing a
group of individuals, as a whole, to deal with a complex problem
(Linstone, Turoff, & others, 1976, p. 3).

According to the definition, therefore, the researcher can choose a technique of
group communication from some standard techniques such as a workshop, a brainstorm
session or a kind of group session to allow all participants to work on the same document
(Jonker & Pennink, 2009). In this study, 6 to 12 participants are selected for data
collection. Data is collected and validated in the following different four rounds (Sekayi
& Kennedy, 2017):
Round 1 –Brainstorming with open-ended questions on the topic
Round 2 – Presentation of the list of statements to the expert panel (Appendix-B)
Round 3 – Presentation of the final questionnaire with feedback to the expert
panel for endorsement (Appendix-C)
Round 4 – Presentation of Final Questionnaire (Appendix-D)
The following questions were asked to the participants in the first round to do
brainstorming. In this stage, individual participants have answered the following four
questions.
1. What does EoT, DT based BE framework, mean for digital Firms?
2. What are the things that drive digital firms to accept EoT?
3. How LoT, DoT and CoT enable EoT in digital firms?
4. What are the aspects of EoT in regard to add value to the business of digital
firms?
Data Analysis
In this study, the data collection is not followed by data analysis because in
Delphi method data collection and data analysis are done systematically simultaneously.
As it is mentioned earlier that a four-round have been employed to collect and analyze
data.
Validity
Both instrument and response are validated in the round 3 and 4. The validity is explained
in terms of a percentage (%).
Summary
The findings of the study may not be generalizable because of the ontological
influence of the respondents caused by the geographical background. However, anyone
may replicate the model to other geographical locations and with more expert panel.
Excellence Of Things (EoT). .100
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS, ANALYSIS, AND FINDINGS
The purpose of this chapter is to report, in enough detail, the results of the data
gathered through a systematic method of data collection, i.e., four-round Delphi method.
In order to establish integrity and internal validity of the analysis, two phases of analysis
have been maintained such as instrumentation and analysis of data. The instrument used
for data collection has been prepared through four round Delphi method. Then the data
collected through open-ended – unstructured – questionnaire has been analyzed
employing a thematic analysis.
Situation Assessment
The panel of experts is from a different educational and professional background.
They are from several industries too. However, they have one similarity that is they
either are overseeing or used to oversee information management (or information
technology) function of digital firms. After finalizing the questionnaire by the experts, I
started looking for participants (respondents) for data collection. It was difficult for me
to find the right participants for the data collection because giving responses to the open-
ended questionnaire requires deep-thinking and knowing the best practices in digital
firms.
Key Factors
Despite the challenges, the participants answered because they were initially
informed about the objectives and contexts of the research. Then, the questionnaire was
administered directly by me on ‘Google Form’. I immediately explained whenever the
participants needed any clarification on any of the given questions. Couples of
participants took time and submitted the questionnaire through email.

Events
The total data collection process has been divided into two phases: validating
questionnaire using the Delphi method and secondly collecting data through an open-
ended questionnaire. Therefore, the first phases were done in four gradual rounds. The
details of rounds are given in appendices. According to the research methodology
adopted in chapter 3, the data was collected through open-ended questionnaire. Then the
answers of the participants were imported in MS Excel program from Google Form after
cleaning up and formatting data. Finally, the MS Excel file was imported into QSR
Nvivo program for qualitative analysis.
Findings
In qualitative research, in order to find the themes generated from the responses of
the questionnaire, the scope of all research questions was defined, and then NVivo was
run. Word frequency was checked at first for each research question. The following
word frequency indicates that the word ‘business’ mostly occurred in the source.
However, the research questions taken for the study are as follows:
RQ1. What does EoT, DT based BE framework, mean for digital firms?
RQ2. What are the things that drive digital firms to accept EoT?
RQ3. How CoT, LoT and DoT enable EoT in digital firms?
RQ4. What are the aspects of EoT in regard to add value to the business of digital firms?
Meaning of EoT in the Context of Digital Firm
‘Digital firm’ can be defined from several perspectives. The participants of my
survey have also defined it in a different context. The participants have answered the
following part of the questionnaire to define the digital firms:
1. What IT application do you utilize in your office as a digital firm?
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Data Warehousing
Business Intelligence
Data Science
Others
2. How paperless is your organization? Do you manage all communications
electronically whether internally or externally? Please explain.
3. Do you think digital transformation is empowering your business? How?
Please explain.
4. Would you please explain some best-practices that are usually found in digital
firms?
After analyzing the answers of the above questions, the following word-cloud in
Figure-26 has been derived – that depicts that information and communication
management is the most vital term in the digital firm:

Figure 26: Meaning of Digital Firm in Word Cloud
A digital firm is based on IM that is implemented through business applications.
Furthermore, a digital firm also has some other features such as paperless,
communication, electronic, automated and systematic/ organized. The following Figure-
27 shows the elements of digital firms:
ELEMENTS OF DIGITAL FIRMS

Paperless AutomatedBest Practices
Organized 13% 0% 1%
2% Business
Applications
40%
Informaiton
Management
35% Communication
Enablers
Electronic Drivers 4%
3% 1% 1%
Figure 27: Elements of Digital firms

As per participants, there are different types of business applications utilized for
IM based on the nature of the business. The participants argue that more than 58% of the
digital firms are utilizing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), 25% of them are utilizing
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Data Warehousing (DWH) applications
or Business Intelligence (BI). The following Figure-28 shows the utilization of business
applications:
ERP
Customer Relationship Management
Data Warehousing
Data Science
Others – Learning Management System
Others – Blackboard system for students
Others – Quality Management System
Others – Social Media and other digital systems
Figure 28: Utilization of Business Applications in Digital Firms
In order to achieve business excellence in digital firms, as per participants, a
digital firm can be ‘partially paperless and or fully digital to achieve excellence’ (P01).
Some others also argue that firms can be at least ‘objectively’ 85% digital for excellence
(PO2). P03 also adds that digital firm can maintain their communication digitally with
internal and external stakeholders for the sake of business excellence. For the purpose of
EoT, the digital firm can maintain their communication and file management
‘electronically’ (P11).
The following Table-4 shows participants more specific comments on EoT in
digital firms:
Table 4: EoT in digital firm
Participants Statements on Excellence in digital firms
P06 Some way. The most important thing for business excellence
for a digital company is to give the best product and after sale
service to the customers and clients.
P10 Sure, as per the correct and accurate data and information
whatever the decision is going to be taken that leads the
business to the excellence.
P13 As IM is the foundation of the semi-automated or fully
automated business process so it can lead to business excellence
in terms of faster activity as well as quality service.
For this reason, a digital firm in the context of EoT is a partially paperless profit
or not-for-profit systematic organization that utilizes some business applications such as
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), BI
(Business Intelligence), mobile computing, cloud computing, IoT (Internet of Things), AI
(Artificial Intelligence), RPA (Robotic Process Automation), and Blockchain for its
process automation, communication and decision making. By means of EoT, a digital
firm also provides the quality products and services to the customers along with semi-
automated or fully automated IM based business process; and makes the right decision at
the right time based on the right information. As discussed earlier in the chapter-2, IM as
one of the capabilities of DT integrates data from different other capabilities of DT such
as mobile devices, cloud computing, AI, IoT, RPA and blockchain.

Driver of Digital Firms to Accept EoT
Few drivers influence a digital firm to achieve EoT. Some of the drivers are
process improvement, quality improvement, performance management, and business
intelligence. The participants have answered the following part of the questionnaire to
find the drivers of digital firms to accept EoT:
1. IM general controls are a combination of process, systems, components, and
data. Usually, IM general control is also the foundation of the semi-automated or
fully automated business process. Does your organization’s business process
have IM general control underneath? Please explain.
2. Do you think a proper utilization of IM may lead to business excellence? Why
or why not?
3. Information Management helps an organization to set a clear direction and
values for the business. Please explain what extent do you agree or disagree?
4. Does Information Management in your organization lead to inspiring
individual and organizational learning and innovation? How? Please explain.
5. Does Information Management in your organization support longer-term
strategic partnerships including customers, suppliers? How? Please explain.
6. Is Information Management in your organization a vital factor to create value
for all the key stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, partners,
the public and the community? How? Please explain.
8. Information Management in your organization focuses on a responsibility to
the public, ethical behavior, and good citizenship? To what extend to you agree
or disagree?
9. Does Information Management in your organization make customer loyalty
and retention easier? How? Please explain.
10. Do you agree or disagree that Information Management in your organization
supports to develop knowledge, skills, creativity, and motivation of its people?
Please explain.
11. Do you think that digital transformation in your organization assists to
improve the business process? How? Please explain.
12. Does Information Management in your organization assist in creating a
culture of trust and empowerment? How? Please explain.
Figure-29 has been derived – that depicts that information and communication
management is the most vital term in the digital firm:

Figure 29: Drivers of EoT in Word Cloud
As per the participants, several drivers influence the digital firm to accept EoT.
These drivers are shown in the following Figure-30:
DRIVERS OF EOT
Buusiness
Quality Intellegence
8% 6%
Process
23%
People,
Performance Culture &
15% Organisation
48%
Figure 30: Drivers of EoT

As per the participants (Figure-30), the prime drivers that influence a digital firm
to accept EoT are positive changes in People, Culture and Organization (48%), Process
improvement (23%), Performance Improvement (15%), Quality Improvement (15%) and
Business Intelligence (6%).
Participants also explain how drivers in digital firms collectively function to
achieve EoT. ‘Operational data’ enables both people and process in a digital firm to
work simultaneously (P01) while IM is a mediator between individuals and
organizational learning to drive towards EoT (P02) that leads an organization to learn and
innovation culture (P03). IM also turns an organization to more productive (P06) and
culture of trust as well as employee empowerment (P08). Digital firms also enhance
organizational sustainability by providing a clear direction, optimizing various processes
and procedures and ensuring quality services (P12); and by providing the right
information to the stakeholders and by reducing operation cost (P11). Moreover, based
on the discussion in chapter-2, ‘digital disruption’ can also be considered as one of the
drivers for EoT because of its stimuli on stakeholders, digital trends and industries.
Finally, all of these drivers influence digital business strategy to respond to digital
disruption and to move towards EoT for adding value to the business. These drivers and
enabler relationship can be shown in a logical diagram as follows (Figure-31):

Figure 31: Relationship of EoT Drivers and Enablers
EoT Enablers in Digital Firms
Based on EoT theory discussed in chapter-2, there are three enablers such as CoT,
LoT and DoT. These three enablers are discussed below:
CoT – Corporate of Things.
Theoretically, CoT refers to Corporate-entrepreneurship of Things within a large
business. Corporate entrepreneurship focuses one corporate leadership, strategy, mission,
vision, and fair treatment. The participants have answered the following part of the
questionnaire to find out the ways of how CoT works in practice:
1. Which of the components shall be included in CoT and why:
Leadership;
Strategic Alignment;
Principles, policies, and frameworks;
Partnership development;
Result focus;
Social responsibilities; and
Fact-based processes management?
2. Please explain how CoT may support you to strengthen your corporate
leadership?
3. How may CoT deliver excellence in your digital firm? Please explain.
4. Do you think CoT may assist you to maximize company potentials? How?
After analyzing the answers of above questions, the following word-cloud in
Figure-32 has been derived – that depicts that leadership, strategic alignment, principle,
policies & frameworks, partnership development, result focus, social responsivities, and
fact-based process management are the Transformative Focus Areas (TFA) or building
blocks in CoT:
Figure 32: Transformative Focus areas of CoT in Word Cloud

As per the participants, there are several areas of CoT that enable EoT in a digital
firm. These elements are shown in the following Figure-33:
Elements of CoT
Social Strategic Fact based
responsibilities Alignment ChangeMotivation
management
Result focus6% 7% 1% [PERCENTAGE] Leadership
4%
Principle,2%policy 5% Partnership
& Framework 2%
8%
Performanc
[PERCENTAGE]
People, culture,
and organisation
49%
Figure 33: Elements of CoT
As per the participants (Figure-33), the prime elements of CoT that enables a
digital firm to accept EoT are People, Culture and Organization (49%), Performance
Management (10%), Principle, Policies, Framework (8%), Strategic Alignment (7%),
Motivation (6%), Social Responsibility (6%), Leadership (5%), Fact-based Management
(4%) and Partnership (2%). The last but not least, Result Focus and Change Management
have also stake in the CoT enabler.
Participants also argue that CoT as an enabler may deliver excellence and add
value to the business in digital firms by maximizing company potentials, strengthening
corporate leadership (P01); improving supervision and entrepreneurship (P02); creating

transparency in IM (P03); improving governance (P03); improving CSR (P07); executing
strategy in systematic way (P08) that achieves organizational goals (P11) and enhance
internal performance (P12) – that in turn motivates employees for creativity and
innovation and establishing better culture and morale (P05); ‘bridging’ business and
other resources (P06) for organizational synergies (P11). The elements of the CoT,
Drivers and Value Addition can be depicted below (Figure-34):
Figure 34: Relationship of CoT Elements
LoT – Lean of Things.
Theoretically, LoT refers to Lean of Things that reduce waste in order to reduce
the cost and satisfy the customer requirements. LoT also focuses on lean philosophy and
tools like Kaizen. The participants have answered the following part of the questionnaire
to find out the ways of how LoT works in practice:

1. Which of the components LoT shall be included and why:
Customer focus;
People focus;
Organizational structure;
Organizational learning and innovation;
Culture, ethics, and behavior;
People skill and competencies; and
Processes improvement?
2. How LoT can help a digital firm to achieve business excellence?
3. Do you think LoT may assist you to meet the demand of current customers?
How?
4. Can LoT increase employee engagement and productivity in your digital firm?
How?
5. Can LoT increase employee performance and satisfaction in your digital firm?
How?
6. Do you think LoT can reduce your cost of running a business through process
improvement? Please explain.
7. LoT can increase your quality of service or product through process
improvement. Please explain what extent do you agree or disagree.
8. Do you agree or disagree that LoT can increase organizational sustainability?
Please explain.
Figure-35 has been derived – that depicts that process improvement, and productivity are
the vital areas in LoT:
Figure 35: Elements of LoT in Word Cloud
As per the participants, there are several areas of LoT that enable EoT in a digital
Elements of LoT
Culture, Ethics
and Customer
Behaviour
Learning and
Process 7%
Innovation
8%
32% 7%
Organizational
structure
Employees'
People, Skills
9%
Productivity
and
Competencies [PERCENTAGE]
30%
Figure 36: Elements of LoT

As per the participants (Figure-36), the significant areas of CoT that enables a
digital firm to accept EoT are enriched People, Skills and Competencies (30%); Process
Improvement (32%), Higher Customer Satisfaction (9%), Optimized Organizational
Structure (9%); Increase in Employees Productivity (7%); Creating Learning and
Innovation Culture (7%); and Creating Culture of Ethics and Behavior (6%).
The participants also argue that LoT as an enabler may deliver excellence and add
value to the business in digital firms by minimizing waste (P04, P09) and achieving zero-
defects (P08, P12); increasing employee engagement, productivity and satisfaction (P01,
P06); reducing cost of running business through improving employees’ skills, utilizing
modern information systems (P11) and taking employees regular feedback (P02, P07);
analyzing customer requirements in understandable-way (P10, P12); making good use of
existing resource (P06); increasing quality of service (P07); focusing on bottom line of
business (P12) – that in turn increases organizational sustainability through teamwork
and optimizing process (P03, P05). The relationship of drivers, elements of LoT and
business value addition are presented in the below figure (Figure-37):

Figure 37: Relationship of LoT Elements
DoT – Data of Things.
Theoretically, DoT refers to the set of data generated from mobile computing,
cloud computing, AI, IoT, RPA, blockchain and finally IM which an enterprise possesses
and analyzing the data using every possible methods and techniques to gain business
insight. The participants have answered the following part of the questionnaire to find
out the ways of how DoT works in practice:
1. Which of the components shall be included in DoT and why:
Information Management
Knowledge Management;
Services management
Infrastructure management and
Applications Management?
2. Do you think DoT is a mean of adding value to the business? Why? Please
explain.
3. It is also very challenging to secure information that you are processing in your
organization. To what extent you agree or disagree?
4. DoT shall be more agile to response business. To what extent do you agree or
disagree?
5. How critical is DoT to support for the sustainability of the enterprise?
6. In any digital firm, there are some significant business processes dependent on
DoT. To what extent do you agree or disagree.
7. How DoT resources and infrastructure availability contribute to achieving
enterprise strategic objectives?
8. Information is a vital factor in quality decision making. How does DoT
accelerate business decision making?
9. DoT also supports the enterprise in complying with regulations. To what
extent do you agree or disagree?
Figure-38 has been derived – that depicts that information and data management are the
vital areas in DoT:

Figure 38: Elements of DoT in Word Cloud
As per the participants, there are several areas of LoT that enable EoT in a digital
Elements of DoT
SystemTechnology
Service Application
Management
Management Data
Knowledge Management Management
4% 3% Management
Management 10% 1%
43%
3%
Infrastructure
Management
1%
Informaiton
Management
35%
Figure 39: Elements of DoT

As per the participants (Figure-39), the significant areas of DoT that enables a
digital firm to accept EoT are proper Data Management (43%), Information Management
(35%), Service Management (10%), System Management (4%), Technology
Management (3%), Knowledge Management (3%), Infrastructure Management (1%) and
Application Management (1%). Based on the discussion on Chapter-2, it is perceived
that IM is an organizational program that includes data management, service
management, system management, technology management, knowledge management,
infrastructure management, and application management to provide ‘right information’ at
the ‘right time’ to the management for making ‘right decision’. In that sense, participants
are mostly emphasizing on IM regardless of its generation point such as IoT, AI, cloud,
Big Data, blockchain.
The participants also argue that DoT as an enabler may deliver excellence and add
value to the business in digital firms by meeting strategic objectives (P03) through
providing fact-based decision making on transparent information at the right time (P12),
getting insight of information (P12) and securing information (P01, P03, P05, P08);
making information available all the time (P12); responding to the business immediately
in agile-way (P02, P03, P11); meeting regulatory compliance (P07, P12); and by making
organization more sustainable (P03, P04, P11, P12) – that in turn increases customer
satisfaction too. Similarly, McQuivey & Bernoff (2013) also argues that digital paradigm
assists the digital leaders to be a further visionary to add value in business by meeting
customers’ requirements at lower cost, with faster development times and with more
significant impact on customer experience. For this reason, mindset and toolset are more
critical in DT rather than digitalization. The relationship of drivers, elements of DoT and
business value addition can be presented in the below figure (Figure-40):
Figure 40: Relationship of DoT Elements
Aspects of EoT in Regard to Add Value to the Business of Digital Firms
Theoretically, EoT refers to the ‘non-proprietorship’ DT based BE framework to
be developed based on this study by integrating lean philosophy, information
management, and corporate entrepreneurship in order to add value to digital firms. The
participants have answered the following part of the questionnaire to find out the ways of
how EoT works in practice:
1. Do you think operational data enables both people and process in a digital firm to
work together? How?

2. A digital firm shall be people-oriented, process-driven and quality data-driven for
optimizing business performance. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
3. A digital firm exists to meet the stakeholders’ needs. Do you think EoT can play
a key role in meeting stakeholders’ needs? Please explain how.
4. EoT can be implemented as a holistic approach and covers the entire digital firm
end-to-end for business excellence. Do you agree or disagree? Please explain.
5. Do you think EoT framework shall be more ‘people-focused’ instead of ‘process-
driven’? Why?
6. Do you think EoT framework shall be more ‘process-driven’ than ‘latest
technology-driven’? Why?
7. Do you think strong commitment and support required from the board or senior
management for implementing EoT in digital firms? Please explain why or why not?
8. Do you require open and transparent communication for EoT implementation?
Why or why not?
9. Do you think secured computing, senior manager’s involvement, and
organization-wide digital transformation are pre-requisites of EoT implementation?
Please explain.
10. CoT, LoT and DoT shall be integrated in such a way that they all can add value to
the business. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
11. EoT can support digital transformation in business. Do you agree or disagree?
Why?
Figure-41 has been derived – that depicts that process improvement and productivity are
the vital areas in DoT:
Figure 41: Aspects of EoT Implementation in Word Cloud
As per the participants, there are several aspects of EoT implementation shall be
taken care off in a digital firm. These elements are shown in the following Figure-42:
EoT Implementation Aspects

Digital
Transparancy Commitment
Transformation
Quality 3% 2% 6%
6% Leadership
Process-driven 14%
23%
Employee
Motivation Organizational
[PERCENTAGE] Culture
38%
Figure 42: Aspects of EoT Implementation

As per the participants (Figure-42), the significant aspects of EoT that shall be
taken care off during implementation of EoT to add value to a digital firm are supportive
Organizational Culture (38%), Process Driven (23%), Strong Leadership (14%),
Employee Motivation (8%), Quality Management (6%) and Excepting Digital
Transformation (6%). However, other factors such as Management Commitment (2%)
and Transparency (3%) are also considered as aspects of EoT implementation.
The participants also argue that aspects of EoT shall be focused for successful
implementation to add value to the business in digital firms by seeing the aspects as a
holistic approach to cover end-to-end business (01); mapping digital strategy accordingly
(P02) and integrating CoT, LoT and DoT (P04). The participants also argue that EoT
implementation requires strong visionary leadership (P02); commitment from
management (P01, P09); motivated workforce (P02); transparent communication (P02);
secured computing (P07) for digital transformation (P09); faster requirements analysis for
customer satisfaction (P11); process-driven and technology-oriented (P12). Thus, as a
result of integrating CoT, LoT and DoT, the digital firms will get motivated workforce,
optimized process, and satisfied customers as shown previous figures (Figure-34:
Relationship of CoT Elements, Figure-37: Relationship of LoT Elements and Figure-40:
Relationship of DoT Elements). The relationship of drivers, integration of three enablers
and their final output can be shown in the following figure (Figure-43):
Figure 43: Relationship of Drivers, Enablers and their output
Summary
A digital firm is more or less paperless that adds value to the business by
achieving excellence based being people-oriented, process-driven and technology-
evangelist. EoT is one of the means to achieve DT based BE in digital firms that enhance
strategic management, leadership, employee motivation, process improvement, quality
management, secured enterprise information management, fact-based decision making
and organizational sustainability.

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the summary of the findings, implications
for future research, and conclusions. Initially, this study aims at discovering some
practical methods for enhancing digital transformation for achieving business excellence
in digital firms. Accordingly, some business excellence frameworks were reviewed.
Then, an association of COBIT with those business excellence frameworks was examined
from the existing literature. It is also assumed that EoT, developed in the light of
COBIT, might fulfill the need of digital firms in terms of achieving DT based BE.
Nevertheless, BE can be achieved in a few ways, and EoT is one of the ways to
do so. EoT may have three ‘Enablers’ such as CoT, LoT and DoT. All of them consist
EoT to add business value. This study emphasizes on BE in digital firms by utilizing
digital capabilities. EIM, one of the digital capabilities, is based on COBIT for
Information that is based on the Committee Of Sponsoring Organization (COSO) while
COSO is based on Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). However, there is no universal and
straightforward BE framework directly derived from either SOX, COSO or COBIT. That
is why; BE and COBIT criteria are compared, and links between them are established to
develop EoT, a model for digital transformation. Such links are called CoT, LoT and
DoT. There is also a challenge of alignment of DoT with BE as there are fewer
similarities between COBIT and BE criteria, though EoT framework has already focused
on digitalization to overcome such a challenge. Nevertheless, EoT can overcome
business challenges, ensure compliance and brings excellence in digital business. A
similar technique like EoT has already applied in several world renown companies like
Toyota to achieve DT based BE.

The findings of the study may not be generalizable because of the ontological
influence of the respondents caused by the geographical background. However, anyone
may replicate the model to other geographical locations and with more expert panel.
However, the qualitative approach will be utilized for building EoT framework by
integrating lean philosophy, digital capabilities, and corporate entrepreneurship in order
to add value to digital firms.
The initial finding of the study is that a digital firm is more or less paperless that
adds value to the business by achieving excellence being people-oriented, process-driven
and technology-evangelist. EoT is one of the means to achieve excellence in digital firms
that enhance strategic management, leadership, innovation, employee motivation, process
improvement, quality management, secured enterprise information management, fact-
based decision making and organizational sustainability. Following sections are the
discussion on the total findings of the Chapter four.
Drivers for Digital firms to accept EoT
A digital firm can accept EoT because EoT makes people and process work
together; increases employees’ productivity but reduces the cost of doing business; assists
to see business insight; transforms business by creating learning, innovation, and
trustworthy culture; and finally stimulates entire digital firm to achieve business
excellence.
EoT Enablers
As explained earlier that Enabler or ‘of the thing’ is anything that assists EoT to
add business value. EoT has three ‘Enablers’ or ‘of things’ i.e. CoT (Corporate-
Entrepreneurship of Things), LoT (Lean of Things) and DoT (Data of Things). CoT is
‘Intrapreneurship’ within a large business firm including working on a particular idea or
project and developing the project like a corporate entrepreneur would but inside an
established business firm. Similarly, LoT includes any lean related things such as Six
Sigma philosophy, reduction of waste, customer satisfaction, Kaizen tools and
techniques, breakthrough improvement. DoT includes anything related to quality
information that adds value to the business through information services, IT (Information
Technology), MIS (Management Information System), data science, BI (Business
Intelligence), BA (Business Analytics), AI, blockchain, RPA, IoT, etc.
COT – Corporate of Things
CoT consists of people and culture, leadership, strategic alignment, change
management and governance that transform business and deliver excellence in digital
firms by maximizing potentials by utilizing resources including information asset;
enhancing performance. CoT finally creates a culture of trust, innovation, creativity, and
synergy - that leads to adding value in business through ‘engaged and motivated
workforce’ and ‘satisfied customers’.
LoT – Lean of Things
LoT consists of process improvement; people, skill and competencies;
organizational structure; culture, ethics and behavior; organizational learning and
innovation that meet customer demands, increase quality of service, increase employees’
engagement and productivity, provide competitive advantage over rivals, reduce defects
or errors, reduce wastes as identified by lean, reduces cost of running business. LoT
finally also transforms business and adds value addition in business through ‘optimized
process’.
DoT – Data of Things
DoT consists of analyzing customer requirements, meeting compliance,
availability, and security of information which enhances fact-based decision making and
response to the business immediately. DoT finally spearheads digital transformation and
value addition to business through ‘digital paradigm’ that requires a new mindset and a
new set of behaviors to create continuous customer connection by embracing disruption
(McQuivey & Bernoff, 2013).
It is also very crucial to mention that upgrading systems and changing few
functional areas of business does not mean that the leaders have the ‘digital paradigm’
instead the leaders, followers and entire organizational shall have strong will-power to
start and finish the challenging journey of renovating the entire business model to
leverage the innovative use of digital technologies. Digital paradigm is about viewing the
entire business from a different angle and the digital lens for delivering new value and
experiences for customers and other stakeholders; the enriching position of the digital
firm in the market; and rising bottom line.
CoT, LoT and DoT do not work in isolation; instead, they work in an integrated
way to add value in the business. Even, some of the elements or ‘Transformative Focus
Areas’ (the building blocks of digital transformation that are especially emphasized by
participants) are overlapped among CoT, LoT and DoT.
Excellence of Things (EoT) Framework
DT based BE framework, EoT is structured based on the responses gathered from
management professionals, IM professionals, and academicians. In order to add value to
the business through satisfied employees and customers, optimized process and digital-
paradigm, EoT is designed to be more generic so that it can be applied to any digital
firms regardless of nature, size, geography or culture. EoT has two kinds of elements or
components in its framework – ‘core’ and ‘non-core’. The integrated 4 (four) ‘core
elements’ are Principles (People-oriented, Process-driven, Technology-passionate,
Holistic), ERM (EoT Reference Model contains all TFAs or building blocks of digital
transformation), ECAM (EoT Capability Assessment Model for measuring current state
and plan for future state) and LEAD (Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver) Cycle – that needs to
be followed start to end for successfully implementation of EoT. Among these four
elements of EoT, principles shall be upheld and devotedly followed all the time
throughout implementing the framework. Moreover, ERM can be built up to frame all of
the TFAs. Similarly, ECAM can be utilized to assess the momentum periodically.
Finally, LEAD Cycle can be applied for rapid and straightforward deployment of TFAs.
LEAD Cycle can be repeated for every TFA; or merged-focus-areas.
Further, EoT is also designed in very flexible-way with its ‘non-core’ elements
such as drivers -varies due to nature and size of digital firms, enablers - varies based on
circumstances and result or value addition – varies due to an interaction of drivers,
enablers and other inputs. However, the integrated core four elements will be explained
in the following sections. The complete DT based BE framework, EoT is shown in the
following figure (Figure-44):

Figure 44: Digital Transformation based BE framework - EoT
Regardless of types of EoT elements ‘core’ or ‘non-core’ – and their interaction,
the ultimate goal of EoT framework is to transform digitally and add value to the
business through ‘Satisfied Employees and Customers’, ‘Optimized Process’ and
‘Digital-Paradigm’. In EoT, ‘Motivated Employee’ is an asset for a digital firm that is
the result of engaging employees by inspiration, showing kindness to them and
encouraging their self-care (Seppala, 2016). Employee engagement and their work
satisfaction are also motivation determinant to fulfill a mission that is meaningful to
themselves (Ankli & Palliam, 2012). Motivated Employees take ownership of
productivity, quality, profits, DT and adding value to the business (Kundu & Vora, 2004).
Figure-34 (Relationship of CoT Elements) also portrays the fact agreed by our survey
participants that intensive supervision, creativity and innovation, organizational synergy

and performance management are the factors that influence employee motivation in a
digital firm. Motivated Employees also make the customers satisfied.
However, ‘Satisfied Customers’ not only means providing extraordinary products
or services but also connecting customers emotionally. The satisfied and emotionally
connected customers are also an asset of the digital firms, and they usually buy more of
the products and services, visit very frequently, communicate freely and recommend the
seller too (Zorfas A & Leemon, 2016). Zorfas and Leemon also argue that such
customers also help to increase customer-base from 21% to 26%; reduce customer
attrition rate from 37% to 33%; increase customer advocacy from 24% to 30%; and
increase sales growth up to 50% (Zorfas A & Leemon, 2016). Figure-34 (Relationship of
CoT Elements) also illustrates the fact agreed by our survey participants that corporate
leadership, improved governance and CSR influence customer satisfaction in the digital
firm. Nowadays, by applying sophisticated IM tools like big-data analytics, customer
emotional connection can also be analyzed and leveraged that result in customer value
and financial returns that in turn add value to the business.
Moreover, ‘Optimized Process’ means a ‘near perfect’ process that has already
achieved the most with the least (Gomez, A. G., Oakes, W. C., & Leone, 2004). Figure-
37 (Relationship of LoT Elements) also shows the influencing factors of ‘Optimized
Process’ as identified by the survey participants that waste reduction, zero defect, regular
feedback, and teamwork. However, Optimized Process can be achieved either by Lean,
or Six Sigma process improvement program consisting some techniques that meet the
business goal and improves business process. The application of such Lean or Six Sigma
techniques to all TFAs results in a very high level of quality at reduced costs with a
reduction in cycle time resulting in improved profitability and competitive advantage
(Breyfogle, n.d.). However, such a program requires huge support from motivated
employees and leadership team. Breyfogle also argues that the leaders shall be
empowered and directed to communicate and shall also learn how to fix the process
instead of reacting to every fault or error (Breyfogle, n.d.). Not only the leadership team
but also Human Resource Managers need to focus on running a consistent, reliable
operation at low cost with standard, simple, automated procedures (Power, 2012). Power
also argues that IBM’s corporate HR function reduced 8,000 HR software applications to
fewer than 1,000 which saved vast amounts of time that HR spent on process
improvement (Power, 2012). However, the Optimized Process can be measured
quantitively with Lean or Six Sigma way (Voehl et al., 2014) or qualitatively with PAM
(Process Assessment Model) of COBIT (ISACA, 2018).
Furthermore, in EoT ‘Digital-Paradigm’ means changing the mindset of all people
of the digital firm regarding DT and establishing a culture of innovation, creativity, and
digitalization in strategic, tactical and operational levels. DT is all about the mindset of
people, culture and dealing with market disruption in an offensive or defensive way as
well as utilization of the right toolset for solving problems. A report of McKinsey shows
that culture is the uppermost barrier (39%) of going towards DT (Goran, Laberge, &
Srinivasan, 2017). McQuivey (2013) also argues that there are three things that shall be
done to overcome such a barrier: adapting a digital disruptor mindset by enthusiastically
accepting digital disruption; behaving like digital disruptor by innovating differently,
building different products and using different partnership model; disrupting immediately
with right mindset and commitment to move forward entire organization. Similarly,
Figure-40 (Relationship of DoT Elements) represents the findings of the survey
participants that the urge of faster decision making with better business insight,
transparent information, anywhere anytime information availability, agile response and
meeting regulatory compliance inspire the culture of DT, i.e., ‘Digital Paradigm’.
Principles of EoT Framework
The principles of any framework are the guiding obligations and good practices
that determine whether the framework is genuinely being managed (AXELOS, 2017).
That is why; frameworks such as EFQM, MBNQA, COBIT have few principles to be
followed as long as the framework is implemented from start to end. Hence, four (4)
principles of EoT have been developed after analyzing participants responses– People-
oriented, Process-driven, Technology-passionate. It is also imperative to mention that
another principle ‘Holistic’ can also be added by following principles of COBIT
framework because people, process and technology can be viewed in a holistic approach
for effective implementation of EoT. These four principles are depicted in the following
figure (Figure-45):
Figure 45: Principles of EoT

Principle-1: People-oriented
Without the involvement of the people, any organizational improvement and
transformation cannot sustain for long. Accordingly, people are the focus of all business
DT and excellence models (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004). Organizational improvement
and quality sustain if the skills and competencies of the people are taken care of in order
to facilitate three aspects such as organization’s effectiveness, efficiency, and
responsiveness to customers’ and other stakeholders’ needs. Therefore people are related
to the learning of the organization and growth of the process (L. J. Porter & Tanner,
2004).
In EFQM for example, ‘people’ are also considered as the resource for any
organizational quality. On the grounds, people’s knowledge is assessed, people are
empowered, rewarded, recognized and taken care of (Sánchez Peña et al., 2013). Figure-
30 (Drivers of EoT), Figure-33 (Elements of CoT) and Figure-36 (Elements of LoT) also
show that ‘People, Culture and Organization’ are the top-most priority in the view of the
survey participants. That is why; ‘people’ is the first principle in EoT and all other
principles are dependent on people too.
Principle-2: Process-driven
Processes are always related to the business transformation by maintaining the
globally accepted best practices. Hence, a DT model is partially dependent on RPA.
Process driven management always introduces new change with top-down manner. So, it
starts at senior level management first (Angell & Corbett, 2009). The process acts as a
mediator between the people and the product. Any process of an organization production
at any given circumstance needs to evaluate in order to develop the level of performance
of organization and satisfaction of beneficiaries. The process adds values to the
customers and stakeholders (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004) because of enthusiastic
management activity and commitment influences entire business (Bytheway, 2014b, p.
60). Moreover, Figure-30 (Drivers of EoT) and Figure-36 (Elements of LoT) also show
that ‘Process’ is one of the top-most priorities for DT based BE as responded by survey
participants. Accordingly, after people process is a vital principle that comes live with
the touch of people. EoT always emphasizes people over process.
Principle-3: Technology-passionate
The first two principles ‘people-oriented’ and ‘process driven’ management is
based on the information system managed by technology (Bytheway, 2014b). Generally,
technology drives the transformation of any organization (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004).
Technology informs the service providers about competitors and how to stay in
accordance with the changing requirements of the consumers (Rajpal & Sagar, 2003, p.
79). Therefore, existing technological supports must be fully utilized to enhance digital
business transformation. Besides, the future and emerging trend of using technology into
the business must be checked and integrated (L. J. Porter & Tanner, 2004). Furthermore,
Figure-39 (Elements of DoT) also shows that information and data management are the
most vital factor for any organization regarding DT. On the grounds; technology is to
utilize the process to automate the business process that is again managed by people.
EoT also emphasizes process over technology and people over process.
Principle-4: Holistic
Being ‘Holistic’ is the crucial aspect of addressing all functional areas of the
digital business transformation framework. Not only the technology but also the process
and the ‘people’ must be assessed in DT. For this reason, any holistic activity or
approach established by correlating among all predetermined criteria to optimize the
application of a given DT based business excellence model (Suárez, Calvo-Mora, Roldán,
& Periáñez-Cristóbal, 2017, p. 154). Finally, with the help of DT, overall business
improves together and by utilizing people, process and technology in holistic fashion
(Angell & Corbett, 2009).
EoT Reference Model - ERM
ERM (EoT Reference Model) is the heart of DT based BE framework, EoT. EoT
Reference Model (ERM) shows the relationship among building blocks of digital
transformation or TFAs as identified by survey participants depicted in Figure-34
(Relationship of CoT Elements), Figure-37 (Relationship of LoT Elements) and Figure-
40 (Relationship of DoT Elements); enablers (CoT, LoT, DoT) as represented in Figure-
31 (Relationship of EoT Drivers and Enablers) and layers. Here, ‘layer’ or management
layer means different levels of management such as strategic, tactical and operational.
ERM is divided into four layers and then aligned with enablers.
Nevertheless, the topmost layer is Strategic management that emphasizes digital
firm’s strategic position and provides answers to the strategic question such as “why do
such DT fails (White, 2009)”. Tactical management layer highlights on organizing
digital firm’s processes, resources and people; and addresses ‘how-to’ kind of questions
such as “how can DT failure be overcome (White, 2009)”. Operational management
layer stresses the digital transformation in the digital firms by applying best practices;
satisfying customers, motivating employees, optimizing business processes; and
concentrating on ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘when’ types of questions such as “what to do for DT
in digital firms (White, 2009)”. Moreover, there is another vibrant management layer
called Monitoring that is developed in light of COBIT. Monitoring layer is
interconnected with the other three layers and also simultaneously belongs to three
enablers.
Furthermore, there are 20 (twenty) TFAs or building blocks of digital
transformation developed based on participants responses as shown in previous figures
(Figure-34: Relationship of CoT Elements, Figure-37: Relationship of LoT Elements,
Figure-40: Relationship of DoT Elements). During the implementation of EoT, these
TFAs can be emphasized for successful implementation. It is imperative to mention that
the TFAs are flexible and customizable. They can also be modified or added or deducted
as required by the digital firms based on market disruption. The following figure
(Figure-46) shows the ERM:
Figure 46: EoT Reference Model

Tailor Framework (Strategic, CoT)
DT based BE comes after following a course of actions which is evaluated
through that particular industry-friendly excellence framework. Because each framework
has its particular design process or logical flow which defines how the excellence
enablers and tools are integrated into the management process of an organization
(Andersen et al., 2000). Thus, tailoring or adapting a framework with the organization is
innovation and job of strategic leaders (Rothschild, 1996). For achieving DT based BE,
EoT can be tailored to fit in the digital firm.
Ensure Governance (Strategic, CoT)
Corporate governance in an established organization is a part of corporate
intrapreneurship which negates rigidity. Because, in most of the cases, traditional
management requirements are very structured causing to misunderstand industry trends
(Zhao, 2013). At the level of strategic governance, importance, the necessity of business
opportunities and problems are answered and attempted to achieve DT based BE.
DT governance or digital governance in digital firms plays a dynamic role in
transforming the organization in regards organizational behaviors, pushing down digital
decision-making, activating pervasive, horizontal, and collaborative communications, and
ensuring a shared decision-making culture (Bongiorno et al., 2018).
Ensure Transparency (Strategic, CoT)
At the strategic layer of CoT enabler, intrapreneurship ensures transparency.
Technology, along with human creativity is also empowering way of transparency
(Gozalez, 2014). Because, the ultimate responsibility of delivering the information
transparently and objectively goes to the strategic management and the people of
governance (Jean-Paul, 2005). Transparency is the crucial factor for DT as DT makes
information reachable and available to everyone leaders, employees, and customers.
Accordingly, there shall be a transparent culture before digitally transforming a digital
firm.
Lead Entrepreneurship (Tactical, CoT)
Entrepreneurial leadership is a type of leadership. Entrepreneurial leaders are
obedient to the organizational limitations, opportunities and people’s future. Therefore,
in order to lead resources and people of an enterprise, there is a process which needs to be
led by the people inside. Leitch & Volery (2017) said that ‘entrepreneurs are leaders par
excellence who identify opportunities and marshal resources from various stakeholders in
order to exploit these opportunities and create value’ (p. 147).
Corporate entrepreneurs have conceptual skills, foresight, and vision for the
business. Besides, they have a positive mindset and plan for the business (Harrison,
Burnard, & Paul, 2017). They inspire the team and individuals together because not only
the team needs creative efficacy, but also individual employees need creative self-
efficacy too (Cai, Lysova, Khapova, & Bossink, 2018).
However, digital leaders are the entrepreneur leaders who utilize digital
technology for the front lines to get closer to customers to integrate supply chains and
distribution networks seamlessly; and to further improve internal operations. They also
have a vision of the impact of DT on their digital firms (Hendrick, 2017).
Synergize Teams (Tactical, CoT)
Synergy is to combine different parts of the whole. A holistic approach may help
leaders to understand what to synergize. For example, multicultural workforce, global

competitors, international suppliers, and customers have different cultures and needs.
Besides, in each organization, there are two types of challenges such as national culture
and organizational culture. Both cultures are called cross-culture that must be synergized
in an organization by the leader. If a manager wants to energize a team, he/she must
understand how to synergize cross-culture (Mihaela, 2014). A synergized team can really
transform business by providing better quality, smarter, collaborative, flexible work –
that enriches team satisfaction and a better work-life balance. Such a synergized team
lead to a transformation in working practices and management; and embraces new
technology to transform new physical and virtual workplaces in keeping with these new
demands (Gozalez, 2014).
Establish Creative and Innovative Culture (Tactical, CoT)
There is a big difference among innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. So,
people get confused about innovation which is more than creativity and entrepreneurship.
Innovation ‘requires a company to marshal diverse resources to deliver commercial
outcomes’ (Hyland & Beckett, 2007). In an innovative and creative culture usually,
people work together (Rienties, Nanclares, Jindal-Snape, & Alcott, 2012). This culture
influences the mechanism to let employees know their level of perceived entrepreneurial
self-efficacy, motivate and enable them to establish a new venture (Pihie & Bagheri,
2013). Some believe that the more an organization exposes to the external business
environment, the more the employees become innovative (Hyland & Beckett, 2007).
However, collaboration and balance are critical tools for an innovative culture.
Creative and innovative culture is one of the pre-requisites for DT based BE. On
account of, DT leaders need to foster a culture that inspires innovation, creativity, and
results through teamwork and mutual respect. DT Leaders also need to practice to
mentor, inspires and uphold full participation and career development; open and active
communication; and interaction to be successful in DT based BE (Gozalez, 2014).
Satisfy Customers (Operation, CoT)
To satisfy the customers is one of the organizational goals. The customers are
satisfied if they get quality service from a digital firm. Thus, it is the employees of an
organization who ensures customers satisfaction. That is why; most leaders try to
increase the service quality of the employees because service quality helps to achieve the
organizational goal (Slåtten, 2009). Total quality management has addressed these issues
of services in the past years (Taveira, James, Karsh, & Sainfort, 2003).
For better customer service, partially or fully digitally transformed firms are
utilizing customer analytics such as Big Data, predictive analytics with machine learning,
and customer experience mapping to deliver unified capabilities that are fascinating,
customized, and steady across all the touch-points connecting to the customers. Digital
firms usually connect their customers through video, SMS, social media, websites,
mobile devices, as well as ordinary direct mail and sponsorships, and traditional media
such as television. Thus, DT takes a digital firm near the customers, and the customers
also get benefited from DT based BE enabled digital firms.
Improve CSR- Corporate Social Responsibility (Operation, CoT)
Corporate Social Responsibility is mostly an expenditure by a high earning
company from total annual profit for the sake of social development (Singh, 2016). CSR
emerges from the point of ethical responsibility views because it is ethical to accept the
responsibility of the customers and employees (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). CSR must have
a framework to interpret its scope and needs to explore the ways of how to operate CSR
within the business improvement process (Van Marrewijk et al., 2004). In return,
through the CSR, corporate-entrepreneurship will be encouraged, and business
transformation will be smoother. Besides, customer feedback must be analyzed and
evaluated regularly.
Focus on Bottom Line (Operation, CoT)
Bottom line is the financial gain of a digital firm. Bottom line indicates
organizational capabilities and its performance (Eikelenboom, 2004). It is traditional to
view to achieve short-term profit from the investment, but sometime short-term profit
may cause harm in the long run (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). However, the factors leading
to loss of profit must be identified through all sorts of creative methods but not at the end
of a financial year instead repeatedly in different points of a given year. Due to DT,
companies have revenue growth, for instance; financial leader ING soared 23% of their
revenue after coordinating their omnichannel on a strategic level (Shanks, 2018).
Another meaning of the bottom line can be the customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. In
this sense, integrity and ethics have strategic value for the value of bottom line (Worden,
2003).
Ensure Zero Defect (Strategic, LoT)
Having zero defects means achieving perfection. In order to achieve perfection,
one has to improve the entire process. Process improvement is one of the strategic
elements in the entire production. Here, the perfection of no defects or zero defects
demands consistent delivery of product and services (J. J. J. J. Dahlgaard et al., 2005).
Furthermore, process management influences key business results such as they prevent
repeated mistakes in production even it expects zero-defects. EFQM works towards this
aim (Calvo-Mora Schmidt, Picón Berjoyo, Ruiz, & Cauzo, 2013). All other business
excellence models have the same idea of zero defect. Those implement Lean, Six Sigma
or Kaizen methods (Kato & Smalley, 2011; Smith et al., 2002).
DT has created revaluation in process improvement and zero defects. According
to McKinsey RPA is utilized in a large financial institution that transformed 60% to 70%
of tasks in record-to-report processes. RPA created annual run-rate efficiencies of 30
percent or more. Moreover, the similar RPA utilized in another digital firm, and they
achieved an 80% reduction in processing costs in excess queue procedures. Furthermore,
another financial institution in the FT500 used RPA to unlock a £175 million annual
reduction in costs and save over 120 FTEs (Dias et al., 2017).
Engage Employees (Tactical, LoT)
If all employees work segregated in an organization, both production and
perfection are threatened. In order to engage employees, digital transformation is a vital
tactical issue. Besides, the integrated management system also ensures workforce
engagement. For this, every single meaningful work must be valued by the leaders
(Blazey, 2013). The meaning of unengaged workers is an existence of variation and
waste in any stage of production (Held, 1986).
In the question of how to engage workers in the organization, it is found in the
research that both personal and job resources make the employees effective in the
organization. Personal resources include self-esteem. While job resources are the
physical, psychological and social aspects of a job for example, co-worker support
(Leung, Wu, Chen, & Young, 2011). Old employees must teach or supervise new
employees so that new employees can learn and make the organization less vulnerable in
case the old employees leave (Dosi, R.Nelson, & G.Winter, 2002).
Nevertheless, globalization, digital technology, demographic changes, and ever-
changing expectations of employees are touching to create the digital workplace with
proper engagement. They push the digital firm to adapt and evolve. When creating a
digital workplace, digital firms must apply a foundation that provides employee
connectivity and collaboration for further engagement (Barrenechea & Jenkins, 2015).
Reduce Waste (Operational, LoT)
Like zero-defects, the waste is also unwanted and needs to be reduced and
eliminated (Smith et al., 2002). Many organizations have implemented Six-Sigma
initiatives as a strategic operation. In order to waste, Womack, Jones, & Roos (1990)
suggested the application of lean methods in mass production. In the era of digitalization,
the proper information system may help to give information about the customers, product
quality, workers’ satisfaction and so on. According to Jha & Joshi, (2007) the customers
must be connected through information management system if not the organization will
face the loss of future sales because the poor quality of service or product does not affect
the immediate level of waste. It is worth to mention that these five ways worked well
concerning the reduction of waste but also increase in productivity in Toyota (Kato &
Smalley, 2011).
The digital capabilities empower employees better, provide more timely
information, directly supporting objectives like waste reduction. Moreover, digital
workflows assure optimal resource utilization with highest-priority activities and insights
from digital workflows also ensure a reduction in time and waste. Thus, digital
capabilities such as digital workflows also enrich the quality and production efficiency
(Microsoft, 2017).
Ensure Fact-based Decision Making (Strategic, DoT)
DoT makes all initiatives data-driven because data or fact is the evidence that
justifies any decision or initiative. For example, Six Sigma works purely based on data.
Previously, the managerial practice of decision making was based on intuition and
expertise. Both intuition and expertise were founded on experience, knowledge of the
situation, circumstance, and the environment (Salas, Rosen, & Diazgranados, 2010) but
in the era of digital transformation, the decision is no more made based on the intuition or
expertise instead on data.
Anderson and Heyden also agree that there is now less chance of making a
decision based on individual intelligence and emotions rather decision making are
progressively based on data in the era of digital transformation. It is because the
utilization of big data and algorithms allows the processing of infinitely complex
information, facilitating truly data-driven decision-making (Andersson & Van der
Heyden, 2017).
Utilize Existing Resources (Tactical, DoT)
Utilizing existing business resources of a digital firm such as energy,
entrepreneurship, information, expertise, management, and time are mainly a strategic
use of information through the internet, information technology and artificial intelligence
(Newman, Thanacoody, & Hui, 2012; M. E. Porter, 2001). By utilizing human, physical
and financial resources, as well as information, knowledge and market opportunities
business excellence can be achieved (Van Marrewijk et al., 2004).

In the digital ecosystem, resources are almost digitized to accept for easy and
straightforward transportation to where they are needed; and bureaucracy and
organizational silos also reducing gradually for digitalization. Digital firms are also
empowering their resources to utilize them for DT and business excellence (Wade, 2015).
Manage Agility (Operational, DoT)
One of the components of Lean is the ability to leverage agility to stimulate
continuous growth. Agility is the catalyst for a company to grow because each time
innovation appears in the industry, the company adapts it (Smith et al., 2002). Those
who are applying shall know how they can improve business agility through a flexible IT
environment. In order to adopt new business innovations, the company needs to assess
the level of current satisfaction among customers, employers, and other bottom-line
things through service-oriented architecture (SOA). However, SOA influences not only
agility but also efficiency and scale (Moeller, 2013).
Agility in a disruptive environment and uncertainty of the digital ecosystem are
effectively managed by agile leaders. They usually have four distinguish agile
characteristics such as ‘Humble’ - encourage feedback and acknowledge that others
know more than they do; ‘Adaptable’ - embrace change and gather new information to
act on it; ‘Visionary’ - have a clear sense of long-term direction even in short-term
uncertainty; ‘Engaged’ - establish interactive and communicating culture in emerging
trends. (Neubauer, Tarling, & Wade, 2017).
Manage Information (Operational, DoT)
Even though each business has a particular background, EIM may be the first
choice for any business firm for its accomplishment of excellence. Every digital firm
maintains relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, and other external partners
through digital technologies and employ some computerized programs such as Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP), Knowledge Management System (KMS), Enterprise Content
Management (ECM), and Warehouse Management System (WMS) and some others too
(Laudon & Laudon, 2013). Main business processes are executed through digital
networks covering the whole organization or linking external organizations (Laudon &
Laudon, 2013). Thus, a digital workplace is essential for a digital economy where
information is the ‘fuel’ of a digital firm. Moreover, in the complex digital ecosystem
this ‘fuel’ is collection from IoT, RPA, blockchain, AI and Big Data; and so, managing
information management cycle is also getting complex day-by-day.
Manage Performance (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT)
Effectiveness is the crucial part of human, material and financial performance
management. Therefore, performance needs to be managed through data, analytics, data
science, implementation (Zink, 1998). Moreover, usages of technology make
performance management transparent either in optimizing staffing levels, improving
sourcing, streamlining shipping or reorganization transport (McKinsey Company, 2016).
However, performance shall be managed in such a way that it shall either boost revenue
or cut cost or do both though performance transformation is a massive job. Because,
there are few real-time precision related challenges due to the lack of usable data,
advanced sensors and data processing capabilities (McKinsey&Company, 2017).

Manage Compliance (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT)
Global regulations are enormously forcing digital firms to take technological
measures not to disclose information to a broader audience while technology needs to
provide thorough security, classification, and controlled discovery. Thus, international
regulatory pressure such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) forces digital
firms to protect only their worthy data as protecting all information is expensive and
unnecessary (Barrenechea & Jenkins, 2015). GDPR boosts detailed personal data
processing. Some elements of GDPR is even so relevant to certain digital firms that they
have to identify and map out those areas which may impact on their business model (Data
Protection Commissioner, 2016).
Manage Internal Controls (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT)
Internal controls are usually based on processes devised to deliver realistic
assurance regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of financial
reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations (Barrenechea & Jenkins,
2015). In other words, internal controls are the policies, procedures, practices and
organizational structures that leverage desirable positive outcomes and allay potential
negative consequences. Internal controls become part of the digital business and finally
part of the digital ecosystem if there is the right principle, policies, and framework.
The digital business needs to identify business risk and then mitigate them with
the assistance of internal controls. Controls need to be selected after preparing digital
strategy and goals, determining opportunities/gaps and defining coverage with control
tools such as COSO, COBIT, and ISO/IEC 27001. A digital firm can obtain reasonable
assurance of executing digital strategy if there is a successful internal control system
(ISACA, 2016).
Manage Feedback Culture (Monitoring, CoT/LoT/DoT)
As discussed earlier digital firm is an element of the digital ecosystem consists of
the digital firm itself, its employees, digital customer, digital customer’s customer, digital
supplier, and digital supplier’s supplier. Moreover, the entire system is based on a
reliable feedback mechanism that has ‘fuel’ like information. Feedback customer further
enriches features of product or services, and similarly, employees feedback enriches
operational excellence. So, some digital leaders also ensure a culture of direct conversion
and immediate feedback as one of the success factors of digital transformation
(Barrenechea & Jenkins, 2015).
However, creating a feedback culture is not a very easy job to do. Feedback often
creates misunderstanding too. Deloitte has identified four elements of effective feedback
such as utilization of emotional intelligence while giving feedback; proper body
language, tone, and facial expressions between the giver and receiver; choosing right
words during communication; and trustworthy relationship between giver and receiver
(Deloitte, 2017). That is why; such a feedback plays a vital role in the digital firm’s
culture too. Some digital firms, therefore, utilize culture as an influential power and
historically feedback culture that made their digital transformation journey easier
(Camgemini Consulting, 2011).

Mapping EoT Reference Model with BE and COBIT Enablers
As a part of the ERM, a mapping table of TFAs can be produced based on BE
Frameworks criteria (Table-2) and COBIT5 criteria (Table-3) to verify whether TFAs are
adequately aligned with a digital firm.
Table 5:
BE frameworks, COBIT, CoT, LoT and DoT Mapping
EoT Capability Assessment Model (ECAM)
EoT has a capability assessment model, based on the internationally recognized
ISO/IEC 33000, Software Engineering—Process Assessment standard. Like other
capability models, ECAM performs a similar assessment on all TFAs that are the
building blocks of the digital transformation, i.e., ECAM provides a way to gauge the
performance, and identify the improvement factors of each TFA so that it can pave the
way for DT based BE, EoT (ISACA, 2018). It is imperative to mention that ECAM, not
a maturity model like CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) instead it is a
capability model. Usually, maturity models are a benchmark for improving business
processes and capabilities; and they provide limited guidance for identifying desirable
maturity levels and for implementing improvement measures (Röglinger, Pöppelbuß, &
Becker, 2012).
However, there is some fundamental distinction between a maturity model and
capability model such as maturity models are staged while capability models are
continuous. ECAM also assesses the capability of TFAs in three dimensions – CoT, LoT
and DoT because each of the TFA either belongs to CoT, LoT or DoT as shown in ERM
(Figure-46). However, there are six (6) capability levels that a TFA can achieve,
including an ‘incomplete’ status as explained below (ISACA, 2018):
Level 0: Incomplete —The TFA is not implemented or fails to achieve its
business purpose, and there is little or no evidence of a systematic achievement of
its business purpose.
Level 1: Basic —The implemented TFA achieves its business purpose but not
ready to respond to digital disruptions.
Level 2: Secured —The basic TFA is now implemented in a managed and secured
way (planned, monitored and adjusted) and the TFA is appropriately established,
controlled and maintained for responding to digital disruption and connecting to
the digital ecosystem.

Level 3: Enterprise IT Management—The secured TFA is now implemented
throughout the enterprise in such a way that it is capable of achieving its desired
business outcomes and trying for innovative disruption.
Level 4: Enterprise Information Management —The TFA now operates based on
IM within defined limits to achieve its business outcomes and innovating
disruptive products or services.
Level 5: Enterprise Information based BE—The TFA is continuously improved to
meet relevant current and projected business goals; and continually innovate
disruptive products.
The capability levels are depicted in three different dimensions – CoT (Howard,
2015), LoT (Raje, 2006) and DoT (ISACA, 2018) in the following figure (Figure-47):
Figure 47: EoT Capability Assessment Model - ECAM

ECAM can be applied to rate each TFA based on ISO/IEC 33001 as follows
(ISACA, 2018):
‘N’ (Not achieved, 0% to 15% achievement) —There is little or no evidence of
achievement of the defined TFA.
‘P’ (Partially achieved, 15% to 50% achievement) —There is some evidence of
an approach to, and some achievement of, the defined TFA. Some aspects of
achievement of the TFA may be unpredictable.
‘L’ (Largely achieved, 50% to 85% achievement) —There is evidence of a
systematic approach to, and significant achievement of, the defined TFA. Some
weakness may exist in the assessed TFA.
‘F’ (Fully achieved, 85% to 100%) —There is evidence of a complete and
systematic approach to, and full achievement of, the defined TFA. No significant
weaknesses related in the assessed TFA.
A TFA or building block cannot move to the next level unless it achieves ‘L’ or
‘F’ at the existing of the level. Again, like any maturity model, ECAM cannot be utilized
to assess the organization rather ECAM will only be utilized on each of the TFA
separately for going ahead in the journey of digital transformation and achieving DT
based BE, EoT.
Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver - ‘LEAD’ Cycle
In an organization, integration and implementation of a new framework are
always challenging. Integration of CoT, LoT and DoT and implementation of entire EoT
is also challenging too. However, based on participants responses and analysis of their
comments firstly, the principle of EoT is developed, then a reference model is also
developed for clear visibility of TFAs or building blocks of EoT. After developing EoT
framework, a capability model, ECAP, is also developed to measure the current state of a
digital firm for defining a roadmap to the future. Finally, an implementation model is
required to implement TFAs separately or in-a-group. In an agile way, there might be
several implementation models like ‘sprint’ running for TFAs to achieve DT based BE,
EoT. Moreover, the output of one TFA can be input for another too. So, the four-stage
implementation model, LEAD (Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver) Cycle, is required to
develop for simple and straightforward implementation of TFAs.
LEAD (Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver) Cycle is an implementation model for the
entire EoT and LEAD cycle can also be equally utilized for any of the TFAs. Like a
four-blade fan, there are four different stages of the LEAD cycle, e.g., L = ‘Learn’ from
consists of lesson learned from previous initiatives or lesson learned logs and getting
aware of TFA/ initiatives and its connection with Digital Ecosystem; E = ‘Explore’
includes gathering in-depth info and analysis of gap; A = ‘Agile’ consists of ensuring
agile actions identified on gap analysis; and D = ‘Deliver’ includes taking measure to
disruptive innovation. LEAD – Learn Explore Agile Deliver – is an iterative process
that continuously rotates clock wisely to achieve the purpose of the defined TFA.
Regardless of the types of the building-blocks or TFAs, the LEAD cycle can be
applied for anyone of them. As each of the TFA is having different criteria and are under
different enablers or layers; related activities, measurement method, analysis,
implementation steps, and results are also different. However, LEAD cycle helps to
achieve DT based BE, EoT to add value to the business. The LEAD cycle, EoT
Implementation Model, is presented in the following figures (Figure-48 and Figure-49).
Figure 48: Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver Cycle

Figure 49: Detailed LEAD Cycle Stages
As an example, any building block or TFA such as ‘Tailor Framework’ can be
considered to visit through the LEAD cycle as follows in the following table:
Table 6:
Detail of Tailor Transformative Focus Area
Stage Learn Explore Agile Deliver
State Get aware of Get in-depth Ensure agile Take measures
Description the context of details of action items as in such a way
the digital firm connecting other found in gap that the tailored
TFAs and its analysis framework
connection in initiates
the digital disruption
ecosystem
Objectives Document the Analyze current Apply lesson Optimize and
plan, process, state, determine learned and continually
procedures, and future state and best practices, improve the
team charter the gap and slice the tailored
tasks in doable framework

groups like
sprint
Scope Understand Review gap Review and Monitor and
organizational regarding CoT, update the control the
Context. LoT and DoT framework as output
Consider Identify TFAs required. Take
previous lesson Assess trending Consider the ‘breakthrough’
learned reports. technologies that ‘framework’ approach for
Understand the impact the building as a further
interaction of business. small, agile improvement
this TFA with Apply project. and innovation.
others and with descriptive, Ensure
CoT, LoT and predictive and collaboration
DoT. cognitive with stakeholder
Understand analytics if and digital
digital drivers applicable and ecosystem.
and trend. see the impact
Understand the on the business
digital model due to is
ecosystem and customization.
related risk
profile.
Outcomes Detailed Gap analysis Detailed doable One-page digital
Requirements report with objectives and strategy
and Risk SMART goals. deliverables
Analysis
Similarly, any other building blocks or TFAs can be implemented in that way –
that will pave the path toward DT based EoT in a digital firm. Moreover, a similar
detailed LEAD cycle can be utilized as an entire transformation model.
Conclusion
After analyzing the participant's responses, EoT is designed and developed with
the help of a few ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ elements. The ‘core’ elements are Principles,
ERM with TFAs or building blocks, ECAM and finally LEAD Cycle whereas the ‘non-
core’ elements are Drivers, Enablers and Value Addition. EoT can also be simply
implemented in short period of time with few steps such as identify non-core elements,
i.e., 1) identify the drivers, 2) define enablers and classify them with CoT, LoT and DoT,
3) define the result as business value addition; then identify the ‘core’ elements 4) strictly
follow to EoT principles, 5) build ERM based on required TFAs, 6) verify the
interrelationship between other frameworks’ elements and other TFAs by mapping TFAs,
7) check the current status with ECAM, and finally 8) apply LEAD Cycle for each TFA
or combined related TFAs.
Recommendations for Future Research
This study is conducted in very short time-span along with resource scarcity.
Accordingly, there is always a chance for further research on the same topic too. The
administrator may investigate the ways information management is functioning before
they implement digital transformation in light of this current study. This pre-observation
will help to understand the effect of implementation of DT based EoT business
excellence framework. Likewise, the interrelationships among the various aspects of
EoT framework might be examined based on ‘quantitative’ data.
Moreover, the entire framework can be reinvestigated in the light of quantitative
research paradigm to see whether the data produces the same result, i.e., same EoT
framework. Besides, a case-study can be done to see EoT also works in the practical
field. Furthermore, EoT might also be tested on specific function such as service
management, software construction, any small business unit for organizational excellence
instead of a comprehensive and holistic approach.
Suggested Questions
During developing EoT, the following research questions arise but were not
answered due to the limitation of the study:

1) Is there any association of drivers and enablers on business value addition via
EoT?
2) How the TFAs correlated with each other? To what degree they affect business
value addition via EoT?
3) What are the challenges to EoT based digital transformation in digital firms?
Interesting Hypotheses for Future Research
Based on the study and recommendation of the further research, there could be few
hypotheses for future research such as:
1) Digital ecosystem and digital firm’s competitive advantages will influence it to
utilize DT based EoT framework.
2) Cost-reduction, employee engagement, and customer value proposition will
influence senior leadership team to implement EoT.
3) Market competition will influence to implement EoT.
4) Greater enthusiasm on digitalization will influence a digital firm to implement
EoT.
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APPENDIX A: TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1: Analog to Digital Transformation

Table 2: Core Theme of BE frameworks with EoT’s enablers:
Enablers
CoT 1. Leadership Setting a clear direction and values for the business firm,
creating customer focus, and empowering the firm and its
people in the pursuit of excellence are critical to all
excellence approaches.
2. Strategic Stressing the importance of strategic development,
alignment alignment and planning and differentiating TQM-type
programs from other strategic programs.
3. Organizational Stimulating individual and Organizational learning,
learning, innovation, and improvement via useful information and
innovation, and knowledge sharing.
improvement
4. Partnership Developing longer-term strategic mutually beneficial
development partnerships including customers, suppliers and education
firms and focusing on delivering sustained value for the
partners.
5. Results focus Creating value for all the key stakeholders, including
customers, employees, suppliers, partners, the public and

Enablers
the community; and balancing the needs of all these key
stakeholders
6. Social Focusing on a responsibility to the public, ethical
responsibility behavior and good citizenship for the longer-term interest
of the
business firm
7. Customer focus Focusing on customer loyalty and retention by
understanding the voice of the current and potential
customers.
8. People focus Focusing on the knowledge, skills, creativity, and
motivation of its people and creating a culture of trust and
empowerment.
LoT 9. Fact-based Focusing all excellence approaches on designing
processes processes to meet customer requirements, systematically
management managing processes based on facts, and improving
processes based on customer feedback as well as feedback
from the process itself.
DoT 10. Information Explained as a part of Organizational learning,
and Knowledge innovation, and improvement
Management
Table 3: COBIT framework with EoT’s enablers
Components
CoT 1. Organizational They are the critical decision-making entities in a
Structures business firm.
2. Culture, ethics, They refer to the set of individual and collective
and behavior behaviors within a firm. They are very often
underestimated as a success factor in governance and
management activities.
3. People, skills, They are related to human resource, its skill set and
and competencies relevant competencies that are required for successful
completion of all activities; for making correct
decisions and for taking corrective measures.
4. Principles, They are the channel for governance body and
policies, and management to transform the desired behavior into
frameworks practical guidance for day-to-day operations.
LoT 5. Processes It is a set of activities that are manipulated to produce a
particular output such as service capabilities or
products.
DoT 6. Information It deals with all information relevant to a business firm
such as structured or unstructured, formalized or
formalized, automated or semi-automated.

Components
7. Services, It incorporates related technology, hardware, and
infrastructure, software that assist a firm to process its information and
and applications services.

Table 4: EoT in digital firm

Participants Statements on Excellence in digital firms
P06 Some way. The most important thing for business excellence
for a digital company is to give the best product and after sale
service to the customers and clients.
P10 Sure, as per the correct and accurate data and information
whatever the decision is going to be taken that leads the
business to the excellence.
P13 As IM is the foundation of the semi-automated or fully
automated business process so it can lead to business excellence
in terms of faster activity as well as quality service.

Table 7: BE frameworks, COBIT, CoT, LoT and DoT Mapping

Table 8: Detail of Tailor Transformative Focus Area

State Get aware of Get in-depth Ensure agile Take measures
Description the context of details of action items as in such a way
the digital firm connecting other found in gap that the tailored
TFAs and its analysis framework
connection in initiates
the digital disruption
ecosystem
Objectives Document the Analyze current Apply lesson Optimize and
plan, process, state, determine learned and continually
procedures, and future state and best practices, improve the
team charter the gap and slice the tailored
tasks in doable framework
groups like
sprint
Scope Understand Review gap Review and Monitor and
organizational regarding CoT, update the control the
Context. LoT and DoT framework as output
Consider Identify TFAs required. Take
previous lesson Assess trending Consider the ‘breakthrough’
learned reports. technologies that ‘framework’ approach for
Understand the impact the building as a further
interaction of business. small, agile improvement
this TFA with Apply project. and innovation.
others and with descriptive, Ensure
CoT, LoT and predictive and collaboration
DoT. cognitive with stakeholder
Understand analytics if and digital
digital drivers applicable and ecosystem.
and trend. see the impact
Understand the on the business
digital model due to is
ecosystem and customization.
related risk
profile.
Outcomes Detailed Gap analysis Detailed doable One-page digital
Requirements report with objectives and strategy
and Risk SMART goals. deliverables
Analysis
EIM
Enterprise IT
Management
IT Management
Secured Computing
Basic Computing
Figure-1: Maslow’s hierarchy theory approach in Digital Transformation
Figure 2: Barman’s Digital Transformation Paths

% of IT/ Telecom and other industries award winners

(2005-2015)
3%
97%
Other Industries IT/ Telecom Industy
Figure 3: Percent of industries-wise award winners of Demin Prize, Baldridge, and

EFQM
3 Famous BE Frameworks' # of Award Winners (2005-2015)
163 168
84 87
46 47
33 34
1 1 3 5
Deming Baldride EFQM Total

Other Industries IT/ Telecom Industy Total
Figure 4: Core BE Frameworks' Number of Award Winners

Core BE Frameworks' Points & EoT Enablers

75.6%
57.0%
49.0% 49.0% 46.5% 47.5%
33.0%
17.1%
7.3% 10.0%
4.5% 3.6%
CoT LoT DoT

% of Allocation as EoT
Deming Baldrige EFQM COBIT5
Figure 5: Comparison of core BE Frameworks, COBIT, and EoT enablers
Figure 6: Deming’s Chain Reaction (Ionica et al., 2010)

Figure 7: People’s contribution to Digital Transformation Journey (Bongiorno et al.,

2018)
Figure 50: Porter’s Digital Value Chain

Figure 9: Gartner Hype Cycle 2018

Figure 10: Wade’s Categories of Digital Business Transformation Models

Figure 11: Gartner’s Rebalancing Technology Portfolio

Figure 12: Information value Cycle throughout an Enterprise (Ladley, 2010)
Figure 13: Bytheway’s Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK)

4. Total
Quality
4. Total
3. Quality
Quality
Practices in
Management
Japan
(TQM)
Business
Excellence
5. Quality
Awards and 2. Stastical
Excellence Quality
Model Control (SQC)
1.Inspection
Figure 14: Ironica’s Business Excellence Transformation

Figure 15: McKinsey’s Digitalization and Productivity

Figure 16: KPMG’s Key IT Capabilities for Business Transformation

Figure 17: Digital Capability and Maturity of MIT and Deloitte

Figure 18: Education Level of Panel
Figure 19: Discipline of Panel

Figure 20: Position of the Panel
Figure 21: Industry of the Panel

Figure 22: Education Level of Participants
Figure 23: Discipline of Participants

Figure 24: Position of the Participants
Figure 25: Industry of the Participants

Figure 26: Meaning of Digital Firm in Word Cloud
ELEMENTS OF DIGITAL FIRM

Paperless AutomatedBest Practices
Organized 13% 0% 1%
2% Business
Applications
40%
Informaiton
Management
35% Communication
Enablers
Electronic Drivers 4%
3% 1% 1%
Figure 27: Elements of Digital firms

ERP
Customer Relationship Management
Data Warehousing
Data Science
Others – Learning Management System
Others – Blackboard system for students
Others – Quality Management System
Others – Social Media and other digital systems
Figure 28: Utilization of Business Applications

Figure 29: Drivers of EoT in Word Cloud

DRIVERS OF EOT
Buusiness
Quality Intellegence
8% 6%
Process
23%
People, Culture &

Organisation
Performance 48%
15%
Figure 30: Drivers of EoT
Figure 31: Relationship of EoT Drivers and Enablers

Figure 32: Elements of CoT in Word Cloud
Elements of CoT
Social Strategic Fact based
responsibilities Alignment ChangeMotivation
management
Result focus6% 7% 1%[PERCENTAGE]Leadership
4%
Principle,2%policy 5% Partnership
& Framework 2%
8%
Performanc
[PERCENTAGE]
People, culture,
and organisation
49%
Figure 33: Elements of CoT

Figure 34: Relationship of CoT Elements
Figure 35: Elements of LoT in Word Cloud

FOCUS AREAS OF LOT

Culture, Ethics
and Behaviour
7% Customer
Process 8% Learning and
32% Innovation
7%
Organizational
structure
9%
Employees'
People, Skills and Productivity
Competencies [PERCENTAGE]
30%
Figure 36: Elements of LoT

Figure 37: Relationship of LoT Elements
Figure 38: Elements of DoT in Word Cloud

ELEMENTS OF DOT
System Technology
Service Application
Management
Management
Knowledge Management Management
4% 3% Data Management
Management 10% 1%
43%
3%
Infrastructure
Management
1%
Informaiton
Management
35%
Figure 39: Elements of DoT
Figure 40: Relationship of DoT Elements

Figure 41: Aspects of EoT Implementation in Word Cloud
EoT Implementation Aspects

Digital
Transformatio
Transparancy Commitment n
Quality 3% 2%
6% 6% Leadership
Process-driven
14%
23%
Employee
Motivation Organizational
[PERCENTAGE] Culture
38%
Figure 42: Aspects of EoT Implementation

Figure 43: Relationship of Drivers, Enablers and their output
Figure 44: Digital Transformation based BE framework – EoT

Figure 45: Principles of EoT
Figure 46: EoT Reference Model

Figure 47: EoT Capability Assessment Model – ECAM
Figure 48: Learn-Explore-Agile-Deliver Cycle

Figure 49: Detailed LEAD Cycle Stages

APPENDIX B: DELPHI QUESTIONNAIRE TO EXPERTS - ROUND2
A. Demographic Info:
1. Name:
2. Age:
3. Gender:
4. Nationality:
5. Education Level: PhD/ Masters/ Bachelor
6. Discipline: Engineering / Business/ Both
7. Position: Manager/ Sr. Manager/ Vice President/ C-Level
8. Industry: Financial Services/ Telecom/ Education/ Others
B. EoT Mean for Digital Firms
A digital firm is a profit or not-for-profit organization that manages its significant
business process and relationship with its stakeholders through digital means such as
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management),
Billing System, CBS (Core Banking System), mobile computing, cloud computing, IoT
(Internet of Things), RPA (Robotic Process Automation) or Blockchain. It does not mean
that a digital firm is IT firms or an IT hardware manufacturing firms or any software
development firms. A digital firm can be any firm that is digitally enabled, and all
business assets are managing digitally.

 ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
 CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
 Data Warehousing
 Business Intelligence
 Data Science
 Others
11. Do you think information management is empowering your business? How?
Please explain.
firms?
C. Drivers for Digital firms to accept EoT
Drivers - are anything that assists your organization to be digital.
Business Excellence (BE)– Excellence is the state or quality of excelling.
Particularly in the field of business and organization, excellence is considered to be an
essential value, and a goal to be pursued. In other words, excellence in everything that
the business firm does such as leadership, strategy, customer focus, information
management, people and processes.
EoT – Excellence of Things – is the ‘non-proprietorship’ BE framework to be
developed based on this study by integrating lean philosophy, enterprise information
management, and corporate entrepreneurship in order to digitally transform business
and add value to digital firms.
process and analysis information for efficient management.
13. Usually, IM general controls (related to systems, components, processes, and
data) are the foundation of semi-automated and fully automated controls. Such
controls are pillars for a business process. Please explain the relationship of IM
general controls, IM processes, and business processes in your organization.
14. Do you think a proper utilization of IM may lead to business excellence? Why or
why not?
15. Information Management in your organization leads to set a clear direction and
16. Does Information Management in your organization lead to inspiring individual
and organizational learning and innovation? How? Please explain.
17. Does Information Management in your organization support to developed longer-
term strategic and mutually beneficial partnerships including customers,
suppliers? How? Please explain.
18. Does Information Management in your organization support to create value for all
the key stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, partners, the
public and the community? How? Please explain
19. Information Management in your organization focuses on a responsibility to the
public, ethical behavior, and good citizenship? To what extend to you agree or
disagree?
20. Does Information Management in your organization focus on customer loyalty
and retention? How? Please explain
focuses on the knowledge, skills, creativity, and motivation of its people and
creating a culture of trust and empowerment? Please explain.

22. Do you think that information management in your organization helps to
implement, improve and automate the business process? How? Please explain
23. Does Information Management in your organization work as a platform for
organizational cultural improvement? How? Please explain.
D. CoT, LoT and DoT enabler for EoT in Digital Firms
CoT - CoT refers to Corporate-entrepreneurship of Things within a large
business. Corporate entrepreneurship focuses one corporate leadership, strategy,
mission and vision, fair treatment, etc.
LoT - refers to Lean of Thinking. The initial concept of Lean is to reduce waste in
order to reduce the cost and satisfy the customer requirements. LoT focuses on lean
philosophy and tools like Kaizen.
DoT - Data of Things refer to the set of data gathered from mobile computing, cloud
computing, IoT, RPA, blockchain, etc. which an enterprise possesses and analyzing the
data using every possible methods and techniques to gain business insight.
24. Which of the components shall be added in LoT and why?
 Leadership;
 Strategic Alignment;
 Principles, policies, and frameworks;

 Partnership development;
 Result focus;
 Social responsibilities; and
 Fact-based processes management?
leadership?
 Customer focus;
 People focus;
 Organizational structure;
 Organizational learning and innovation;
 Culture, ethics, and behavior;
 People skill and competencies; and
 Processes improvement?
How?
How?
How?
34. LoT can increase your quality of service or product through process improvement.
Please explain what extent do you agree or disagree.
Please explain
36. Which of the components shall be added in DoT and why?
 Information Management
 Knowledge Management;
 Services management
 Infrastructure management and

 Applications Management?
explain.
organization. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
39. The dot shall be more agile to response business. To what extent do you agree or
disagree?
40. How critical is DoT to support in sustaining the enterprise?
41. In any digital firm, there are some particular primary business processes
dependent on DoT. So, what shall be the requirements of DoT in improving
business processes?
42. How DoT resources and infrastructure availability contribute to meet required
43. Information is a vital factor in quality decision making. How does DoT accelerate
business decision making?

44. DoT also supports the enterprise in complying with regulations. To what extent
do you agree or disagree?
E. EoT to add value to the business of digital firms
management, and corporate entrepreneurship in order to add value to digital firms.
work together? How?
46. A digital firm shall be people-oriented, process-driven and quality data-driven for
optimizing business performance. How shall these three things be integrated for
digital firms?
47. A digital firm exists to meet the stakeholders’ needs. How can EoT meet the
stakeholders' needs?
end-to-end. Do you agree or disagree? Please explain.
49. Do you think EoT framework has to be more focused on ‘people’ over ‘process’?
Why?
50. Do you think EoT framework has to be more ‘focused’ on ‘process’ over ‘latest
technology’? Why?
management for implementing EoT in digital firms? Please explain why or why
not?
Why or why not?
organization-wide information management are pre-requisites of EoT? Please
explain.
54. CoT, LoT and DoT have to be integrated in such a way that they all can add value
to the business. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
55. A digital firm shall put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the
transformation for the successful implementation of EoT. Do you agree or
disagree? Why?
APPENDIX C: DELPHI QUESTIONNAIRE WITH FEEDBACK OF EXPERTS -
ROUND3
1. Name: <Anonymous>
2. Age:
3. Gender:
4. Nationality:

B. EoT mean for Digital Firms
business process and relationship with its stakeholders through digital means such ERP
(Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Billing
System or CBS (Core Banking System). It does not mean that a digital firm is IT firms or
an IT hardware manufacturing firms or any software development firms. A digital firm
can be any firm that is digitally enabled, and all business assets are managing digitally.
 Data Science
 Others

11. Do you think information management is empowering your business? How?
Please explain.
firms?
Driver - is anything that assists your organization to be digital.

13. Usually, IM general controls (related to systems, components, processes, and
data) are the foundation of semi-automated and fully automated controls. Such
controls are pillars for a business process. Please explain the relationship of IM
general controls, IM processes, and business processes in your organization.
why not?
15. Information Management in your organization leads to set a clear direction and

17. Does Information Management in your organization support to developed longer-
term strategic and mutually beneficial partnerships including customers,
suppliers? How? Please explain.
18. Does Information Management in your organization support to create value for all
the key stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, partners, the
public and the community? How? Please explain

disagree?
20. Does Information Management in your organization focus on customer loyalty
and retention? How? Please explain

focuses on the knowledge, skills, creativity, and motivation of its people and
creating a culture of trust and empowerment? Please explain.
22. Do you think that Information Management in your organization helps to
implement, improve and automate the business process? How? Please explain
23. Does Information Management in your organization work as a platform for
organizational cultural improvement? How? Please explain.
CoT - CoT refers to Corporate-entrepreneurship of Things within a large
business. Corporate entrepreneurship focuses one corporate leadership, strategy,
mission and vision, fair treatment, etc.

DoT - Data of Things refer to the set of data which an enterprise possesses and
analyzing the data using every possible methods and techniques to gain business insight.
24. Which of the components shall be added in CoT and why?
 Leadership;
 Result focus;

leadership?
 Customer focus;
 People focus;

How?
How?
How?

Please explain
36. Which of the components shall be added in DoT and why?
explain.

disagree?
40. How critical is DoT to support in sustaining the enterprise?

41. In any digital firm, there are some primary business processes dependent on DoT.
So, what shall be the requirements of DoT in improving business processes?
42. How DoT resources and infrastructure availability contribute to meet required


work together? How?

46. A digital firm has to be people-oriented, process-driven and quality data-driven
for optimizing business performance. How these three things need to be integrated
for digital firms?
47. A digital firm exists to meet the stakeholders’ needs. How can EoT meet the
stakeholders' needs?
end-to-end. Do you agree or disagree? Please explain.
49. Do you think EoT framework needs to be more focused on ‘people’ over
‘process’? Why?
50. Do you think EoT framework needs to be more ‘focused’ on ‘process’ over ‘latest
technology’? Why?
not?
Why or why not?
organization-wide information awareness are pre-requisites of EoT? Please
explain.
54. CoT, LoT and DoT need to be integrated in such a way that they all can add value
55. A digital firm shall put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the
transformation for the successful implementation of EoT. Do you agree or
disagree? Why?
APPENDIX D: REVIEWED DELPHI FINAL QUESTIONNAIRE - ROUND4
(Some questions namely 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 40, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53 and 55
are modified based on Expert Panel’s feedback)
1. Name: <Anonymous>
2. Age:
3. Gender:
4. Nationality:
B. EoT mean for Digital Firms
business process and relationship with its stakeholders through digital means such as
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management),
GSM Billing System, CBS (Core Banking System), mobile computing, cloud
computing, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence), RPA (Robotic Process
Automation) and Blockchain. It does not mean that a digital firm is IT firms or an IT
hardware manufacturing firms or any software development firms. A digital firm can
be any firm that is digitally enabled, and all business assets are managing digitally.
Digital business transformation – It is the process of exploiting digital technologies
and supporting capabilities to create a robust new digital business model.
 Data Science
 Others
11. Do you think digital transformation is empowering your business? How? Please
explain.
firms?
Driver - is anything that assists your organization to be digital.
13. IM general controls are a combination of process, systems, components, and data.
Usually, IM general control is also the foundation of the semi-automated or fully
automated business process. Does your organization’s business process have IM
general control underneath? Please explain.

why not?
15. Information Management helps an organization to set a clear direction and values
for the business. Please explain what extent do you agree or disagree?
17. Does Information Management in your organization support longer-term strategic
partnerships including customers, suppliers? How? Please explain.
18. Is Information Management in your organization a vital factor to create value for
all the key stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, partners, the
public and the community? How? Please explain.
disagree?
20. Does Information Management in your organization make customer loyalty and
retention easier? How? Please explain.

supports to develop knowledge, skills, creativity, and motivation of its people?
Please explain.
22. Do you think that digital transformation in your organization assists in
transforming business digitally? How? Please explain.
23. Does Information Management in your organization assist in creating a culture of
trust and empowerment? How? Please explain.
D1. CoT enabler for EoT in Digital Firms
CoT - CoT refers to Corporate-entrepreneurship of Things within a large business.
Corporate entrepreneurship focuses one corporate leadership, strategy, mission and
vision, fair treatment, etc.
24. Which of the components shall be added in CoT and why?
 Leadership;
 Result focus;
leadership?
D2. LoT enabler for EoT in Digital Firms
 Customer focus;
 People focus;
How?
How?
How?
Please explain.
D3. DoT enabler for EoT in Digital Firms
DoT - Data of Things refer to the set of data collected from mobile computing,
cloud computing, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence) RPA (Robotic
Process Automation), Blockchain, etc. which an enterprise possesses and analyzing the
data using every possible methods and techniques to gain business insight.
explain.
disagree?
40. How critical is DoT to support for the sustainability of the enterprise?
41. In any digital firm, there are some fundamental business processes dependent on
DoT. To what extent do you agree or disagree.
42. How DoT resources and infrastructure availability contribute to achieving
work together? How?

46. A digital firm needs to be people-oriented, process-driven and quality data-driven
for optimizing business performance. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
47. A digital firm exists to meet the stakeholders’ needs. Do you think EoT can play a
key role in meeting stakeholders’ needs? Please explain how.
end-to-end for business excellence. Do you agree or disagree? Please explain.
49. Do you think EoT framework needs to be more ‘people-focused’ instead of
‘process-driven’? Why?
50. Do you think EoT framework needs to be more ‘process-driven’ than ‘latest
technology-driven’? Why?
not?
Why or why not?

organization-wide digital transformation are pre-requisites of EoT
implementation? Please explain.
54. CoT, LoT and DoT have to be integrated in such a way that they all can add value
55. EoT can support digital transformation in business. Do you agree or disagree?
Why?
APPENDIX E: FINAL QUESTIONNAIRE WITH ANSWER
1.
Participa P01 P02 P03 P04 P05 P06 P07 P08 P09 P10 P11 P12
nts ID
2. How
old are 30-35 30-35 36-40 36-40 41-45 36-40 36-40 30-35 36-40 36-40 36-40 36-40
you?
3.
Male Male Female Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female
Gender
4.
Banglad Bangla Banglad Banglade United Bangla Banglad Banglad Banglad Banglade Banglad
Nationali Afghan
eshi deshi eshi shi States deshi eshi esh eshi shi eshi
ty
Masters
5.
Doctora Master Bachel and
Educatio Masters Masters Masters Masters Masters Masters Masters Masters
te s or Bachelo
n Level:
r
6. Bio-
Social Engineer Enginee Engine Busines Enginee Enginee Engineeri
Disciplin statisti Both Both Both
Science ing ring ering s ring ring ng
e cs
Senior Senior Senior Senior
7. Studen Senior Manage C- Manage Manage Manage Senior
Lecture Manage Manage Manage
Position t Manager r Level r r r Manager
r r r r
Teleco Teleco Teleco
Telecom
mmunic mmuni mmunic
municatio
Financi ation cation Financi ation Financi
Pharma n and
8. Educati Educat al Not-for- and and al Not-for- and al
ceutical Informati
Industry on ion Service profit Informa Inform Service profit Informa Service
s on
s tion ation s tion s
Technolo
Technol Techn Technol
gy
ogy ology ogy
1.
nts ID
Blackb
oard
system
meanin
g all
comm
unicati
ons are
done
via ERP
websit (Enterpr
e ise
tagged Resourc
ERP ERP
with ERP e
(Enter (Enterpr
email (Enterpr ERP Plannin
9. What prise ise Office
access. ise (Enterpr g);
IT Resour Resourc Applicati
A user Data Resourc ise ERP CRM
applicati ERP ce e on, Social
Learnin places Wareho Data e Resourc (Enterpr (Custo
on do (Enterpri Planni Plannin Media,
g any using; Wareho Plannin e ise mer
you se ng); g); and day-
Manage questio Busines using; g); Plannin Resourc Relatio
utilize in Resource CRM CRM to-day
ment ns and s Data Quality g); e nship
your Planning (Custo (Custo Communi
System proble Intellige Science Manage Busines Plannin Manage
office as ) mer mer cation
ms in nce ment s g) ment);
a digital Relatio Relatio Applicati
the System Intellige Data
firm? nship nship ons
respect s nce Wareho
Manag Manage
ive (QMS) using;
ement) ment)
folder, Busines
and the s
solutio Intellige
ns are nce
immed
iately
given
either
by the
same
folder
or by
email.
1.
nts ID
Objecti
vely
85%
are
electro
nic.
Rest
15%
can be
done
electro
nically 80% of
Most of
. So, our
10. How the
15% commu Partiall
paperles commu 30%
are We are nication y
s is your nication paperles
subject managi s are paperles
organiza Modera Partial is made s, the
ive in 80% ng in a paperles s. We
tion? Do tely paperles Yes, through remaini
nature. paperless mixed s. Only manage
you paperles s. 50% we are email. ng 70%
For for all mode, for most of
manage s. I do Internal paperles totally Howeve is still
instanc communi both some Most of the
all not and s. All paperle r, there on
e, an cations manual hr. the the works commu
commun manage external commu ss in is a paper
assign electroni and process are done nication
ications all commu nication terms limited base,
ment is cally electron we still electronic digitally
electroni commu nication s are of number mostly
upload whether ic use ally for
cally nication s are electron comm of commu
ed internall measure paper internal
whether s partially ic. unicati commu nication
digitall y or is taken like as well
internall electron paperles on. nication by
y, but external into leave as
y or ically. s s that phone
on the conside applicat external
externall are and
exam ration. ion, commu
y? Please made email.
day, attenda nication
explain. using
student nce
letters.
s are sheet, .
general
ly print
out
one
copy
in
corresp
ondenc
e to the
teacher
.
1.
nts ID
Indeed
. Every
year
institut
ion Inform
change ation for sure
s the manag Yes. As it is,
strateg ement we are after the
y of an is a operatin required
Yes. I existin very g in a data
Sure.
think so g vital regulate Conven entry
This is Yes,
because pattern part of d ient process,
an era Sharing
11. Do we can by the the industry ways of easily
of the
you use acquire busine and commu we can Yes,
informa Yes, I informa It is very
think informa d ss in Data nication yes, retrieve informa
tion, think tion, much
digital tion in knowle terms Integrit between 100% the tion
and so informati knowle needed
transfor multiple dge of y is an the by required manage
it on dge, and
mation is purpose collect privac integral individ supporti informa ment is
should manage commu important
empower s ed y of part of uals ng data tion empow
be one ment is nication for
ing your through throug busine us, we within processi from ering
of the empower with running
business analysis h ss must the ng the your
tools ing your differen today’s
? How? and inform secrec manage organiz faster. system busines
for business t business
Please gain ation y and all our ation and s.
empow departm
explain. busines manag proper informa and the base on
ering ents
s ement inform tion outside that
compan easier.
insights which ation complyi world. informa
y.
. helps disclos ng tion can
stakeh ure to Quality take
olders the System much
to related s. Decisio
validat stakeh n.
e the olders.
upcom
ing
project
s
1.
nts ID
Using
Email
for
formal
comm
unicati
All the
on.
communi
Usage
cation
of PKI
both for
12. Sharing and
Strategy internal digital
Would informa Encryp 1.
No cash and and firms
you People tion, tion Master SAP is
Paperle Up-to- transact innovati external are
please focus, knowle for Data widely
ss, date ions. on, done mostly
explain process dge, comm Manage used for
corresp inform No Custom electronic digital;
some driven commu unicati ment all
ondence ation. purchas er ally like people
best- and Not sure nication on 2. ERP kinds of
and One e from Decisio in mail, are
practices technol with confid 3. QMS a
online stop unautho n, an fully
that are ogy differen entialit 4. purchas
databas service rized Progres automate valued
usually depende t y and Identity e
e. . vendors s d system for
found in nt departm authent Manage request
. automat like the digitaliz
digital ents icity. ment
ion support ation.
firms? easier. access-
portal,
based
web
CRM
portal,
usage
etc.
for
vendor
/buyer
comm
unicati
on.
1.
nts ID
13. IM
general
controls
are a
combina We are
tion of coordi operatin
Yes, my
process, nation g in a
organiz
systems, of semi-
ations
compone work automat
busines
nts, and activiti ed
s
data. es and approac
IM process
Usually, then h with
general has IM
IM Sorry, it placing an
control Yes, general
general is a the ultimate
is part our It is not control
control is very activiti target to
of our organi I have though up as we
also the advance es in be a
audit zation limited to the work
foundati d terms fully yes, we
and have knowle mark but followi
on of the questio of it is not automat have
assuran busine dge still we ng
semi- n for valid totally ed. We process Not
ce ss about are process
automat me. inform inter- NA are system properl
process proces the IM adopting es and
ed or Does ation, depende fully compon y now
as our s have policy the work
fully this part and d complia ents and
financia IM in our culture in through
automat of this knowle nt to data
l general organiz our the
ed questio dge to our
informa control ation. organizati system
business n relate utilize approve
tion undern on. and we
process. to the the d policy
flows eath have
Does drivers? service and
over IT our
your s are procedu
or IM. compon
organiza well res, and
ents and
tion have establi Data
data for
business shed in Integrit
our
process my y has
organiz
have IM organi the
ation.
general zation. prime
control focus.
underne
ath?
Please
explain.
1.
nts ID
Yes, it
Some may as
way. IM is
The the
sure, as
most foundati
per the
import on of
correct
ant Proper the
and Yes, I
Sure, thing utilizati semi-
Yes, it Yes. accurate believe
14. Do Yes, I IM for on of automat
Yes, I is. The This is data so. Using
you think based busine IM ed or
think a storage, the era and IM, we
think a because system ss surely fully
proper preserv of informa can
proper through can be excelle helps automat
utilizat ation, informa yes, of tion forecast
utilizatio IT we one of it nce for organiz ed
ion of and tion, course, whateve the future
n of IM can the depends an IT ations busines
IM mainten and it will r the of the
may lead implem importa how compa to s
may ance of properl reduce decision business
to ent best nt holistic it ny is to thrive process
lead to informa y processi is going more
business practice factors is give in the so it can
busine tion are utilized ng time to be convenie
excellenc s of the for the dynami lead to
ss vital for IM is taken ntly. This
e? Why globaliz busines best c busines
excelle today’s the key that helps the
or why ed s produc busines s
nce industri to leads business
not? world. excellen t and s excellen
es. success. the in the
ce after environ ce in
busines long run.
sale ment. terms of
s to the
service faster
excellen
to the activity
ce.
custom as well
ers and as
clients. quality
service.
1.
nts ID
I agree
as
I
Informa
strongl
tion
y agree
Manage
with
ment
that
helps
statem
15. the
ent. An
Informat I think organiz
IM can Agree
ion the I agree ation to
lead to
Manage clear strongly up to set a
the some
ment directio I agree believe 90% clear
organi Informati Yes, extent
helps an n is an that the that 80% I directio
zation on informa that
organiza outcom informa stateme Informa am n and
in a Informa Manage tion inform Yes, I
tion to e of the tion nt that tion agreein values
proper tion is ment manage ation fully
set a IM, not manage informa Manage g, we by
way the key helps ment manag agree. we
clear the ment tion ment must managi
and factor 60% to helps us ement must
direction drivers. helps us manage helps an make ng
deploy for our an to helps make the
and Howeve to ment organiz the various
ing strategi organizat manage us to team to
values r, at manage helps us ation to team to process
new c ion to set employ manag achieve
for the first employ to set a achieve es and
technol decision a clear ees and e the
business. you ees and manage clear the procedu
ogy -making direction increase emplo organizati
Please mention increase employ directio organiz res and
solutio process. and their yees on goal
explain ed IT, their ees and n and ation ensurin
ns. In values producti and
what and producti increase values goal g
particu for the vity. increas
extent do here vity. their for the quality
lar, it business e their
you you producti busines services
fulfills produc
agree or mention vity. s by
the tivity.
disagree ed IM. followi
deman
? ng and
d for
monitor
compli
ing all
ance
those
regulat
process
ions
es and
too.
procedu
res.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
Informa
tion
Manage
ment in
16. Does
Yes, it my
Informat Yes, it
Good. Yes. does. organiz
ion Yes, does.
Informati We My yes, it ation
Manage informa Inform Informa
on have organiz does As we leads to
ment in tion ation tion can Certainly,
Manage Not implem ation help a are at inspirin
your manage Manag motivat Yes, IM helps
ment in that ented a use the lot by the g
organiza ment ement e or Commu business
the much, fully latest having starting individ
tion lead inspires is a demotiv nication to
organizat it is automat technol our own point, ual and
to both mediat ate and forecast
ion leads like a ed ogies internal but the organiz
inspiring entrepre or people. collabor the future
to general cloud- and website primary ational
individu neurshi betwee IM can ation that helps
inspiring to-do based train up where findings learning
al and p and n be the between both the
individua and (SaaS) the anyone show and
organiza intrapre individ vehicle staff individual
l and control learning employ can that it innovati
tional neurshi uals of help us and
organizat over manage ees to access will on by
learning p and learning innovati organizati
ional inform ment make any help us initiatin
and (individ Organi and on on as a
learning ation. system sure informa in this g
innovati ual and zationa develop whole.
and to everyon tion regard various
on? organiz l ment.
innovatio comply e can needed training
How? ational) learnin
n IM. use the ,
Please g.
system. learning
explain.
session
and
creative
activitie
s.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
No
custom
er is
for
once,
this
most
questio
of Yes,
n has
them Informa
many Yes,
17. Does Yes, it are Yes, it tion
aspects By yes, most Yes. yes. currentl
Informat is — repeate does. Manage
to Inform of the Informa Informa y we
ion Informa d Informa ment in
answer. ation time. tion tion are
Manage Proper tion buyer, tion my
For Manag Informati Manage Manage engagin
ment in informa Manage so the Manage Yes, IM organiz
exampl ement, on ment in ment in g with
your tion ment in inform ment in support to ation
e, our Manage our our the
organiza sharing our ation our redefine support
longer- organi ment in organiz organiz donors,
tion is the organiz shared organiz the longer-
term zation our ation ation and as
support key ation betwee ation relationsh term-
strategi always organizat support support per the
longer- require support n the support ip among strategi
c and collabo ion longer- longer- area
term ment of longer- parties longer- the c
mutuall rate support term term and
strategic trust term are term stakehold partners
y long- longer- strategi strategi sector
partners and strategi kept strategi ers to hips
benefici term term c c of their
hips develop c control c mutual includin
al project strategic partners partners interest,
includin ing partners led for partners benefits g
partners s with partnersh hips hips we are
g strategi hips a hips among custome
hips interna ips includin includin working
customer c includin better includin the rs,
must be l and including g g for
s, partneri g trustw g parties. supplier
answere externa customer custome custome better
suppliers ng. custome orthy custome s by
d. l s, rs, rs, strategi
? How? rs, relatio rs, being
Please source suppliers supplier supplier c
Please supplier nship supplier loyal
make s. . s. s. partners
explain. s. with s. and
this hips.
the gaining
questio
stakeh trust.
n
olders,
shorter.
especia
lly
clients
and
supplie
rs.
1.
nts ID
There Yes,
are Informa
various tion
project Manage
s run ment in
18. Is in our my
Informat Yes. organi Yes. Yes. organiz
ion Informa zation Inform Informa ation is
Manage tion which ation tion a vital
ment in Manage directl Manag Manage factor
your ment in y or ement ment in to
organiza your indirec in your your create
tion a organiz tly organi organiz value
vital ation a connec zation ation a As per for all
factor to vital t all a vital vital me, yes, the key
create factor the key factor factor but still Yes, stakehol
value for to stakeh to Yes. to yes, we we are Using the der
all the create olders. create But we create have working applicatio includin
Informa
key value In value are still value online on n like BI, g
tion
stakehol for all summa yes, for all struggli for all tracking others Data WH custome
transfor
ders, the key ry, especiall the key ng, as the key systems to make and Data rs,
ms us
includin stakehol most y for No stakeh this stakehol for them Science employ
includin
g ders, of the monitori olders, process ders, several accept we can ees,
g all
customer includin project ng includi is still includin supplier that it create supplier
stakehol
s, g s ng manual g s, will be values s,
der.
employe custome created custom paper- custome partners a vital among all partners
es, rs, and ers, based. rs, , etc. factor stakehold , the
suppliers employ develo emplo employ for the ers public
, ees, ped to yees, ees, organiz and the
partners, supplier facilita supplie supplier ation. commu
the s, te the rs, s, nity as
public partners comm partner partners Informa
and the , the unity s, the , the tion
commun public and public public Manage
ity? and the give and the and the ment
How? commu proper comm commu manage
Please nity. reasoni unity. nity. s
explain. ng on relation
why ship
the and
proble monitor
m s to
occurs keep
1.
nts ID
and the
sugges consiste
t ncy of
recom value.
mendat
ions to
the
respect
ive
authori
ty to
take
care of
the
proble
ms.
1.
nts ID
I agree.
Informa
tion
Manage
ment in
my
organiz
ation
focuses
19. on the
Informat I am responsi
ion agree strongly bility to
Yes. partly Agree.
Manage that agreed Yes, I the
Inform agreed Inform
ment in I agree. Informa that fully public,
Informa ation that ation
your Employ tion Informa agree. ethical
tion Manag Informati Manag
organiza ees are Manage tion Informati behavio
manage ement on ement
tion Agreed. more ment in Manage on r, and
ment in your Manage in your
focus on It is responsi the ment in Managem good
ensures organi ment in organi
responsi informa ble now It is organiz our ent in our citizens
transpar zation your zation I
bility to tion that than close to ation organiz organizati hip by
ency in focus organizat focus partially
the makes before. our focus ation on focus monitor
manage on ion focus on agree
public, us Their internal on focus on ing
ment respon on respon with the
ethical either commu employ responsi on responsib every
that is sibility responsi sibility stateme
behavior transpar nication ees bility to responsi ility to departm
why the to the bility to to the nt.
, and ent or could only. the bility to the ent of
stateme public, the public,
good unethic be public, the public, the
nt is ethical public, ethical
citizensh al. recorde ethical public, ethical whole
correct behavi ethical behavi
ip? To d for behavio ethical behavior, organiz
and or, and behavior, or, and
what future r, and behavio and good ation as
true. good and good good
extend to use. good r, and citizenshi per
citizen citizensh citizen
you citizens good p standar
ship ip ship
agree or hip citizens ds and
disagree hip policies
? and by
ensurin
g the
procedu
res the
behavio
ral
activitie
s and
relation
1.
nts ID
ship to
the
public
are
maintai
ned
which
implies
to be
good
citizens
hip.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
Informa
tion
Manage
ment in
my
organiz
ation
To
The yes. makes
keep yes, very
custome Inform custome
20. Does loyalty much.
rs' ation r
Informat and Informati Yes. yes.
informa Sure. Manag loyalty
ion retenti on Informa Informa
tion is IM ement and
Manage on, the Manage No, and tion tion
stored helps us in your relation
ment in organi ment in yes. We Manage Manage
in the to organi easier.
your zation your have ment in ment in It will, Yes, IM
system, analyze zation By
organiza always organizat not our our but still, helps to
and that locality focus followi
tion focus ion focus started organiz organiz we build the
is why and on ng the
make on on No to ation ation hope to trust
it is retentio respon ISO
customer updati responsi release makes makes migrate among
easy to n of sibility standar
loyalty ng bility to the custome custome to the the
focus custome to the ds and
and content the product r r IM parties.
on rs, public, policies
retention s and public, in the loyalty loyalty
custome churn ethical and
easier? publish ethical market. and and
r rate, behavi procedu
How? ing behavior, retentio retentio
loyalty etc. or, and res,
Please new and good n easier. n easier.
and good custome
explain. metho citizensh
retentio citizen r
dology ip
n. ship loyalty
.
is
achieve
d at the
same
time the
relation
is made
easier.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
Informa
tion
Manage
ment in
my
organiz
ation
support
s to
21. Do
develop
you
knowle
agree or
Agree. Yes. I agree. yes. yes. dge,
disagree Yes, I
Informati Informa Informa Informa Informa skills,
that agree, Yes, Transpa
on tion tion tion tion creativit
Informat but the Inform rent Yes, it
Manage Manage Manage Manage Manage y, and
ion questio ation informa helps
ment in ment in ment in ment in ment in motivati
Manage n is not Manag tion employ
your your your your your on of its
ment in clear ement creates ees to Yes,
organizat organiz organiz organiz organiz people.
your especial in our transpar collabor using
ion ation ation ation ation By
organiza ly what organi ency ate historical
supports Not support support support support Informa
tion do you zation that in virtuall data we
to that s to s to s to s to tion
supports mean makes turn y in can easily
develop much develop develop develop develop Manage
to by custom motivat real- forecast
knowled knowle knowle knowle knowle ment it
develop creating er e time the
ge, dge, dge, dge, dge, is a
knowled a loyalty people and future.
skills, skills, skills, skills, skills, require
ge, skills, culture and and commu
creativity creativit creativit creativit creativit ment to
creativit of trust retenti finally a nication
, and y, and y, and y, and y, and arrange
y, and and on culture easier
motivati motivati motivati motivati motivati training
motivati empow easier. of trust.
on of its on of its on of its on of its on of its and
on of its erment.
people people people. people. people awarene
people?
ss
Please
sessions
explain.
as well
as
various
creative
activitie
s which
lead to
develop
ing the
knowle
1.
nts ID
dge,
skills,
creativit
y, and
motivati
on of its
people.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
Informa
These
tion
three
Sure. Manage
22. Do implem Some Yes, I
For IM ment in
you ents, cases think
busines Yes. yes. my
think improve yes. that
s Informa Informa organiz
that and Inform Informa
process tion tion ation
digital automat Yes, it ation tion IM helps
is yes, it is, Manage Manage assists
transfor e words I think streamli Manag Manage to
required but if ment in ment in yes, it in
mation have a this is nes ement ment in improve
and you your your will transfor
in your differen a commu in your my the
again make organiz organiz improve ming
organiza t repetiti nication organi organiz process
for some ation ation the busines
tion meanin on of both zation ation using the
busines option assists assists busines s
assists in g. For the internall assists assists experienc
s then was to to s digitally
transfor me, it is questio y and to in e to have
process, useful to transfor transfor process. by
ming a n external transfo transfor better in
a solid answer m m followi
business problem ly. rm ming future
IM busines busines ng the
digitally address busine busines
platfor s s ISO
? How? these ss s
m is digitally digitally standar
Please three digitall digitally
required ds and
explain. verbs in y .
. policies
a single
and
answer.
procedu
res.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
Informa
Every
tion
organi
Manage
zation
ment in
has its
my
unique
organiz
style
ation
of
assists
workin
in
g
creating
which
a
often
culture
23. Does contrib
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, of trust
Informat utes to
Informa Inform Informa Informa Informa and
ion its
tion ation tion tion tion empow
Manage culture
Manage Manag Manage Manage Manage yes, it Yes, erment.
ment in . Every
ment in ement ment in ment in ment in will Using IM As an
your individ Sure.
your in your your your your create, we can ISO
organiza ual is Open
organiz organi organiz organiz organiz because build certified
tion clear informa Nope,
ation zation ation ation ation all the trust that organiz
assist in about tion about
assists No assists assists assists assists process redefines ation
creating his creates 20% in
in in in in in is the my
a culture roles an open my case.
creating creatin creating creating creating visible relationsh organiz
of trust and culture
a ga a a a to all ip in ation
and respon b
culture culture culture culture culture the better has
empower sibiliti
of trust of trust of trust of trust of trust team. ways built a
ment? es in
and and and and and secure
How? the
empow empow empow empow empow and
Please organi
erment erment erment erment erment transpar
explain. zation
ent
and
environ
knows
ment
how to
which
accom
set a
plish
trustwor
the
thy
tasks
culture
ahead
within
of the
the
deadlin
whole
es.
organiz
ation,
1.
nts ID
and as
an
impact,
it leads
to
empow
erment
culture
as well.
1.
nts ID
Leaders
hip;
Strategi
c
Alignm
ent; Leaders Leaders Leaders
Principl hip; hip; hip;
es, Strategi Strategi Strategi
policies c c c
, and Alignm Alignm Alignm
framew ent; ent; ent;
Leaders
orks; Principl Leaders Principl Principl
Princip hip; Strateg
Partners es, Leadersh hip; es, es,
les, Strategi ic
hip policies ip; Strategi policies Leaders policies
policie c Align
develop , and Strategic c Leaders , and hip; Leadershi , and
24. s, and Alignm ment;
ment; framew Alignme Alignm hip; framew Principl p; framew
Which of frame ent; Princip
Result orks; nt; ent; Strategi orks; es, Strategic orks;
the works; Principl les,
focus; Partners Result Social c Partners policies Alignmen Partners
compone Partner es, policie
Social hip focus; responsi Alignm hip , and t; Result hip
nts shall ship policies s, and
responsi develop Fact- bilities; ent; develop framew focus; develop
be added develo , and frame
bilities; ment; based Fact- Social ment; orks; Social ment;
in CoT pment; framew works;
Fact- Result processe based responsi Result Social responsib Result
and why: Social orks; Partner
based focus; s process bilities focus; responsi ilities focus;
respon Partners ship
process Social manage es Social bilities Social
sibiliti hip develo
es responsi ment manage responsi responsi
es develop pment
manage bilities; ment bilities; bilities;
ment
ment; Fact- Fact- Fact-
spelling based based based
mistake process process process
in the es es es
word manage manage manage
thing. ment ment ment
See
above
....do
you
think....
1.
nts ID
Superv
ision
has a
signifi
cant
impact
on my
creativ
e
ability,
and
this
implies
a high- A
quality leader
25. relatio makes Leaders
Please Yes, nship the strongly hip is
explain CoT with system agree the part
It will
how CoT may my transpar that CoT Bridgin Using of CoT,
It will help to it may
may support supervi ent and may Did g leadershi and so
establis improve track
support you to sors. workabl support not busines p synergy strength
h a new the the Not
you to strength But e by you to though s and created ening
culture, corporat progres sure
strength en your there is utilizing strengthe t about the within the leadersh
better e social s of the
en your corporat a the n your that. resourc organizati ip in all
morale responsi strategy
corporat e contin right corporate es on level
bilities
e leadersh uous informa leadershi will
leadershi ip need tion at p boost
p? for the up CoT
researc right
h to time.
identif
y the
factors
that
contrib
ute to
the
develo
pment
and
growth
of
corpor
1.
nts ID
ate
leaders
hip.
CoT
It will corporat
focusse It will
provid help in e
s on help us
26. How Yes, ea The improvi entrepre
internal to take
may CoT CoT structu many competi ng the if its It helps to neurshi
corporat risks;
deliver may red ways tive principl deploye work p is one
e the
excellenc deliver proces like advanta es, d and together of the
entrepre employ Do not Not
e in your excellen s that manage ge of policies enforce to achieve compon
neurshi ees will Know Sure
digital ce in suppor ment, busines , and d the ents
p that is be
firm? your ts decision, s framew properl organizati that
also an creative
Please digital develo strategy excellen orks of y on goal may
essentia and
explain. firm ping ce the deliver
l part innovati
ideas organiz busines
for ve
ation s
busines
1.
nts ID
s excellen
excellen ce.
ce
Yes. It
leads
to
develo
p new
produc
ts and
to
yes,
enter
Yes, it CoT
the
is. It may
27. Do answer. market Yes, Yes,
brings assist
you CoT s with Sure. CoT CoT
knowle you to
think may these. CoT may may It helps to
dge as maximi
CoT may assist Also, can lead assist assist work
everyon ze
assist you to there to better you to you to together
strategic e in the Not compan
you to maximi can be governa Maybe maximi No sure maximi to achieve
al organiz clear y
maximiz ze a lack nce that ze ze the
ation potentia
e compan of leads to compan compan organizati
works ls by
company y innova potentia y y on goal
towards managi
potential potentia tive l. potentia potentia
the ng
s? How? l power ls ls
same internal
within
goal. perform
the
ance
existin
g
compa
nies.
To
handle
this, a
compa
1.
nts ID
ny can
make
use of
the
concep
ts of
corpor
ate
entrepr
eneurs
hip, as
this
can
result
in an
exhaus
tion of
already
existin
g
succes
s
potenti
al or it
can
result
in
suppor
ting or
buildin
g up
new
potenti
al.
1.
nts ID
Custom
er
focus;
People
Custom Custom Custom
focus;
er er er
Organiz
focus; focus; focus;
ational
People People People
structur
focus; focus; People focus;
e;
Organiz Organiz focus; Customer Organiz
Organiz Organi Custo
ational ational Organiz focus; ational
ational zationa mer
structur Organiz structur ational Organizat structur
learning l Custom focus;
e; ational e; structur ional e;
and learnin er Cultur Custom
Organiz Custome learning Organiz e; learning Organiz
innovati g and focus; e, er
ational r focus; and ational Organiz and ational
28. on; innova People ethics, focus;
learning People innovati learning ational innovatio learning
Which of Culture, tion; focus; and Organiz
and focus; on; and learning n; and
the ethics, Cultur Organiz behavi ational
innovati Organiza People innovati and Culture, innovati
compone and e, ational or; structur
on; tional skill on; innovati ethics, on;
nts shall behavio ethics, structur People e;
Culture, structure; and Culture, on; and Culture,
be added r; and e; skill People
ethics, Processe compet ethics, People behavior; ethics,
in LoT People behavi Culture, and skill
and s encies; and skill People and
and why: skill or; ethics, compet and
behavio improve Process behavio and skill and behavio
and People and encies; compet
r; ment es r; compet competen r;
compet skill behavio Proces encies
People improve People encies; cies; People
encies; and r ses
skill ment skill Process Processes skill
Process compet improv
and and es improve and
es encies ement
compet compet improve ment compet
improve
encies; encies; ment encies;
ment;
Process Process Process
please
es es es
check
improve improve improve
the
ment ment ment
spelling
of do
you
think
1.
nts ID
when
the
require
ment of
LoT is
By the
related
makin custome
Process to
g good r is
an improve It will process
use of clearly If the
advant ment encoura improve
local by underst organizati
29. How age reduces ge ment,
resourc eliminat ood by on
LoT can over cost and It helps entities and so
e and ing the become
assist a compet increase to Connect to use improvi
trustw waste in employ customer
digital itors s maximi ing with minimu ng
orthy both ee as focus,
firm to answer and quality well ze value new m process
relatio process well the then the
achieve improv that and technol resourc means
nship and criteria business
business es helps to minimiz ogy es and improvi
betwee producti of the can do
excellenc compa achieve e waste adopt a ng
n on demand better for
e? ny busines zero- busines
enterpr sector for sure, its
reputat s wastage s
ises it will customers
ion excellen policy. perform
and the assist to
ce. ance or
serving achieve
excellen
firms. the
ce.
busines
s
excellen
ce.
1.
nts ID
Yes,
becaus
e it is
more Yes, it
enviro will.
to meet
nmenta Custom
the
lly ers are the
demand LoT
friendl becomi Yes, improvi
30. Do for surely Yes, Yes, Yes, I
y. It is ng more LoT ng
you current can LoT LoT believe
often yes, LoT demand may process
think custome analyze may may focusing
associa may ing, assist Integrat leads to
LoT may rs -- this custome assist assist the
ted assist markets you to ion of quality
assist part of r you to you to customer
with you to are meet As-Is improve
you to the require meet meet I can
being meet the becomi the and to NA ment
meet the questio ments the the better
conven demand ng more deman be (Gap that in
demand n is not that demand demand serve my
ient, of the aggressi d of mitigati turn
of clear. ultimate of the of a customer
time- current ve, and the on) meet
current Will it ly help current current using the
saving customer LoT current custome
customer be the to meet custome custome data
and will custom r
s? How? demand demand r r science
less help us er demand
of OR .
costly, streamli .
demand
which ne the
for?
is process
attracti es
ve and
practic
al.
Yes. Yes. LoT
Yes, it
By Proper yes, may
31. Can yes, will yes, yes, yes,
giving utilizati LoT yes, increase
LoT LoT yes, LoT increase LoT LoT LoT
regular on of increas because employ
increase increase increase producti increase increase increase An
perfor LoT via e the ee
employe employ employe vity, it employ employ employ employee
mance teamwo emplo employ engage
e ee e will ee ee ee can
and rk yee ee ment
engagem engage engagem reduce engage engage engage increase
feedba increase engage knows and
ent and ment ent and the ment ment ment their
ck. s ment the producti
producti and producti cycle and and and knowledg
Also, engage and process vity in
vity in producti vity in times producti producti producti e and
they ment of produc of the your
your vity in your and vity in vity in vity in skill
provid employ tivity work to digital
digital your digital improve your your your using IM
e ees and in your be firm by
firm? digital firm d the digital digital digital
develo their digital done. solid
How? firm operatio firm firm firm
pment producti firm teamwo
ns
opport vity. rk and
1.
nts ID
unities value
and the
trainin employ
g ees.
If
questio
n 31
true
then it
Yes, we Yes,
can
can better LoT
increas Yes.
focus our increase
32. Can yes, e. by yes, yes, yes,
employee employ
LoT LoT Becaus yes, LoT reduci LoT LoT LoT
using the ee
increase increase e if Yes. increase ng increase increase increase
IM data perform
employe employ feedba LoT is employe wastag employ employ employ
that helps ance
e ee ck and teamwo e e of ee ee ee
to and
perform perform trainin rk that performa time perform perform perform
develop satisfact
ance and ance g are surely nce and NA and ance ance ance NA
the skill ion in
satisfacti and given increase satisfacti effort and and and
set of the your
on in satisfact properl s on in to satisfact satisfact satisfact
employee digital
your ion in y, then perform your addres ion in ion in ion in
that helps firm
digital your it ance. digital s your your your
to through
firm? digital obviou firm unnece digital digital digital
improve employ
How? firm sly ssary firm firm firm
employee ee’s
increas things.
satisfactio engage
es
n ment
emplo
yee
perfor
mance
and
1.
nts ID
satisfa
ction.
Yes,
Yes.
LoT
By
can
improv
33. Do yes, reduce
ing Using
you yes, LoT yes, yes, yes, your
emplo Informati
think LoT can LoT LoT LoT cost of
yees’ Yes. Yes. on
LoT can can reduce can can can running
skills Improvi LoT is a system,
reduce reduce your reduce reduce reduce a
meanin ng custome we can
your cost your cost of your your your busines
g process r- better
of cost of runnin cost of cost of cost of s
people means centric forecast
running running ga running running running through
know cost yes, it is philoso Yes the future
a a busine a a a process
what reductio phy, of the
business busines ss busines busines busines improve
they n and and it business
through s throug s s s ment. It
must waste will which
process through h through through through is
do and reductio reduce ultimately
improve process proces process process process because
how to n. cost. helps to
ment? improve s improve improve improve improvi
do it. reduce
Please ment improv ment ment ment ng
But the cost
explain. ement process
need a
means
researc
less
h
defect
1.
nts ID
action or error
plan. that
means
less
cost of
producti
on or
service.
1.
nts ID
LoT
can
I increase
strongl your
y quality
34. LoT
agree. of
can
This is agree. service
increase
done LoT or
your Yes, agree. Yes, agree.
by Yes, LoT can product
quality LoT LoT LoT LoT
providi can increas through
of can can can can
ng a Quality increase e your process
service increase increase increase increase
system Service your quality improve
or your your your your
atic, Manage quality of ment. It
product quality quality quality quality
scientif ment of service is
through of of of of Yes, I
ic needs service NA or NA because
process service service service service agree
approa the or produc improvi
improve or or or or
ch to first- product t ng
ment. product product product product
practic class through throug process
Please through through through through
ing process process h means
explain process process process process
contin improve proces less
what improve improve improve improve
uous ment s defect
extent do ment ment ment ment
improv improv or error
you
ement ement that
agree or
as a means
disagree.
part of less
daily cost of
work. producti
on or
service.
35. Do
I agree. LoT
you
LoT maybe, can
agree or Establis
Yes. focus LoT Agree. I agree. yes. increase
disagree hed and yes, LoT
LoT on can LoT LoT LoT organiz
that LoT optimiz can
can Yes, in maintai increas can can can ational
can ed increase
increase the ning the e increase increase increase Yes, I sustaina
increase process organizat Agree
organiz long balance organi organiz organiz organiz agree bility
organiza can ional
ational run. between zationa ational ational ational by
tional help sustainab
sustaina supply l sustaina sustaina sustaina focusin
sustaina sustaina ility
bility and sustain bility bility bility g on the
bility? bility.
demand ability bottom
Please
. line.
explain.
1.
nts ID
Informa Informa Informa
Informati
tion tion tion
on
Manage Manage Manage
Managem
Inform ment; ment; ment;
Informa Informa ent;
ation Informati Knowl Knowle Knowle Knowle
tion and tion and Knowled
and on and edge dge dge dge
Knowle Knowle ge
36. Knowl Knowled Manag Manage Informa Manage Informa Manage
dge dge Managem
Which of Informa edge ge ement; ment; tion ment; tion ment;
Manage Manage ent;
the tion and Manag Manage Servic Service Manage Service Manage Service
ment; ment; Services
compone Knowle ement; ment; es s ment; s ment; s
Service Service managem
nts shall dge Servic Services, manag manage Knowle manage Knowle manage
s, s, ent;
be added Manage es, infrastru ement; ment; dge ment; dge ment;
infrastr infrastr Infrastruc
in DoT ment; infrastr cture, Infrastr Infrastr Manage Infrastr Manage Infrastr
ucture, ucture, ture
and why: ucture, and ucture ucture ment ucture ment ucture
and and managem
and applicati manag manage manage manage
applicat applicat ent;
applica ons ement ment; ment; ment;
ions ions Applicati
tions Applica Applica Applica
ons
tions tions tions
Managem
Manage Manage Manage
ent
ment ment ment
Yes,
37. Do
DoT
you
yes, means yes, yes,
think
data decision yes, DoT DoT is DoT is
DoT is a I have Using
always making is a Yes, it Yes. a means a means
means of limited DoT, we
depict an input means of helps to Data of of
adding Do not knowle Not certainly
NA the that adding project Manage adding adding
value to know dge in sure able add
fact of surely value to submiss ment is value to value to
the this values to
the adds the ion the key the the
business area. business
compa value to business busines busines
? Why?
ny the s s
Please
busines
explain.
s.
1.
nts ID
38. It is Data Strongl
also very encryp y
Yes, I
challengi tion Agree. It is a agree. Agreed,
Yes. It believe
ng to and 60%. It It is challen It is it is
is also It is
secure back is also also ging also also
very very
informat up are As very I agree. very task, very very
challen challen Yes,
ion that require informa challengi Someti challen but challen agree; challen
ging to ging to Confident
you are d to tion is ng to mes ging to fully ging to the data ging to
secure secure iality is a
processi secure exchang secure collabor secure automat secure should secure
informa informa great
ng in the ed, it informati ation inform ed informa not be informa
tion that tion that concern.
your data. become on that between ation systems tion that easily tion that
you are is being It is a
organiza But s more you are employ that allow you are modifie we are
processi process contempo
tion. To Anti- vulnera processin ees may you us to processi d processi
ng in ed in rary idea.
what malwa ble. g in your fail are manage ng in ng in
your my
extent do re organizat proces Data your your
organiz organiz
you protect ion sing in efficient organiz organiz
ation ation
agree or ion is a your ly. ation ation.
daily.
disagree challen organi
? ge. zation
Yes, I
agree. someh Yes,
DoT
39. DoT DoT I agree. ow DoT
part of I
shall be should Without agree should
the Yes. strongly agree.
more be proper that be more
busines Should agree. DoT
agile to rapidly custome DoT agile to
s and so be DoT should
response respon r should respons
if the based should be more Yes, I
business. Agile ding to service, be Not e
busines agree on the be more agile to fully
To what way change it will more Sure busines
s is need of agile to respons agree
extent do by be agile s to
agile, time respons e
you adaptin difficult to respond
DoT (present e busines
agree or g its to respon to
should ) busines s.
disagree initial achieve se market
also be s.
? stable DoT busine immedi
agile!
config ss. ately.
uration
1.
nts ID
The
bigger
the
custom
er
base,
the
bigger
very DoT
the DoT Due to
It is critical support
compa May critical the
40. How Yes, very and s the
ny, the destroy well. . DoT Very advance
critical is DoT critical needed sustaina
more a DoT can can Critical, of the
DoT to can that that bility of
comple busines support suppor as we technolog
support support DoT DoT the
xa s that for the t for are ical area,
for the for the support can Not enterpri
busine we have sustainab NA the operatin it is very
sustaina sustaina s for the support Sure se by
ss seen in ility of sustain g in a crucial of
bility of bility of sustaina for the proving
becom many the ability regulate use DoT
the the bility of sustaina right
es and Organiz enterpris of the d for
enterpris enterpri the bility of data at
that, in ation e enterpr industry business
e? se enterpri the the
turn, like ise sustainabi
se. enterpri right
can Enron. lity
se time.
have a
serious
impact
on a
firm s
ability
to be
‚s.
1.
nts ID
First,
definin
g
exactly
what
you
need to
measur
e.
Then,
accurat
ely
measur
41. In ing
any what is
DoT Strongl I
digital going
Yes, should y partially agree., Always
firm, on at
there be Agree., agree., there there
there are every yes,
are availabl there there are are
some key stage there are
some e, are are some some
business of a some
key transpar some some key key
processe busine key Do not Yes, I
busines ent and key key busines Not busines
s ss business NA think fully
s secured busines busines s Sure s
depende proces processe so agree
process enough s s process process
nt on s. s
es to process process es es
DoT. To Finally depende
depende improve es es depende depende
what , nt on Do
nt on busines depende depende nt on nt on
extent do analyzi
Do s nt on nt on Do DoT.
you ng the
process Do Do
agree or data
disagree. and
seeing
what it
tells
you.
Additi
onally,
having
a ‚s
system
that
highlig
hts any
future
1.
nts ID
proces
s
ineffici
ency.
1.
nts ID
These
are
such DoT
precise resourc
objecti es and
ves infrastr
that ucture
42. How It is DoT
will availabi
DoT real- resourc
drive lity
resource Skilled time es and
the Both the assists
s and and data infrastr
organi resource in
infrastru enough processi Regulat ucture
zation and achievi
cture Does DoT ng ory availabi
over infrastruc ng
availabili DoT resourc capabili complia I have a lity
the ture are enterpri
ty assist have es are should ties Do not nce has limited assist in Not
next the key se
in any means be from know the idea on achievi Sure
few part to strategi
achievin infrastr of databas require this ng
years achieve c
g ucture? strategi es to ment enterpri
and the objectiv
enterpris c help for this se
have strategic es by
e objectiv make strategi
enough objectives providi
strategic es. on-time c
clarity ng data
objective decision objectiv
that analysis
s? s es
there is and
no right
room market
for intellige
misinte nce.
rpretati
on.
1.
nts ID
Data
becom
es
inform
ation
after it
has
DoT
been
involve
proces
s
sed to
humung
add
ous
43. context Yes,
volume
Informat , DoT Informa
s of It can
ion is a relevan accelerate tion is a
data, Yes, help
vital ce, and business vital
Yes, which Inform We busines
factor in purpos Sure, decision factor
Informa the ation is follow a s to
quality e. By quality by making in
tion is a traditio a vital risk- generat
decision lookin DoT faster using quality
vital nal factor based e more
making. g at the means data Not Informati decision
factor mostly RDBM in quality reliable
How data, quality processi Sure on making,
in S quality system data to
does the and on- ng by Systems and so
quality cannot decisio for make a
DoT import time tools by there
decision be n decision busines
accelerat ant decision forecastin should
making. scaled makin making s
e decisio g enough
to g. decision
business n can business emphasi
manage .
decision be growth ze on
. It will
making? imple DoT.
help to
mented
analyze
or can
data
stop a
efficient
decisio
ly.
n to
avoid
unnece
ssary
resourc
e
misuse
1.
nts ID
Yes,
Data
DoT
monito
also
ring
support
board
s the
is
44. DoT enterpri
always
also Yes. I se in
lookin
supports Yes, strongly strongly agree complyi
g at
the DoT DoT is yam. agree agree that ng with
DoT
enterpris also a key DoT also that that DoT regulati
and
e in support factor supports DoT DoT also ons. We
check
complyin s the for the also also support also see
the
g with enterpri regulato enterpris support support s the Not Yes, I lots of
compli NA maybe
regulatio se in ry e in s the s the enterpri Sure agree news
ance
ns. To complyi complia complyin enterpri enterpri se in related
issues
what ng with nce and g with se in se in complyi to
for
extent do the service regulatio complyi complyi ng with regulato
further
you regulati quality n ng with ng with regulati ry body
develo
agree or on. regulati regulati on penaltie
pment
disagree on on s due to
or
? wrong
renewa
informa
l of
tion or
compa
DoT
ny
related
goals
issues.
1.
nts ID
Yes.
People
are the
source
of the
ideas
and the
engine
of
45. Do
critical
you Yes, Yes, yes, Certainl
thinkin ya,
think operatio operatio operatio y,
g that operation Informati
operatio nal data Yes, it nal data nal data operatio
enable al data on
nal data enables will A enables enables nal data
s you enables Systems
enables both Accessi help an process both both enables
to turn both help to
both people ble and organiz is a people people both
custom people analyze
people and current ation to Do not guiding and and Not people
er and data to
and process data build Know approac process process Sure and
needs process take a
process in a make it better h to in a in a process
and in a decision
in a digital happen custome regulate digital digital in a
market digital in a more
digital firm to r people firm to firm to digital
forces firm to precise
firm to work service work work firm to
into work way
work together together together work
compet together.
together . . . together
itive
? How?
(and
profita
ble)
opport
unities
for
your
busine
ss.
1.
nts ID
a clear
vision
of the
desired
busine
ss
impact
must
shape
the
46. A Strongl
integra agree.
digital Yes, A y agree. Yes. A Sure, a
ted A
firm digital A digital digital
approa digital
needs to firm digital firm firm
ch to firm
be should firm should should
data should
people- be should be be
sourcin be Yes
oriented, people- be people- people-
g, people- Agree,
process- oriented people- oriented oriented
model There oriented with the
driven , oriented , ,
buildin must be , people,
and process- , process- process-
g, and a process- process
quality driven process- driven driven
organi balance based on Do not driven Not and data
data- and NA driven and and
zationa d way data Know and Sure no
driven quality and quality quality
l to quality business
for data- quality data- data-
transfo integrat data- can
optimizi driven data- driven driven
rmatio e them. driven sustain in
ng for driven for for
n. That for the long
business optimizi for optimizi optimizi
helps optimizi run
perform ng optimizi ng ng
you ng
ance. Do busines ng busines busines
avoid busines
you s busines s s
the s
agree or perform s perform perform
comm perform
disagree ance. perform ance. ance.
on trap ance.
? Why? ance.
of
startin
g by
asking
what
the
data
can do
for
you.
1.
nts ID
Map
your
strateg
y
47. A
accordi
digital
ngly. Any
firm
present firms
exists to
your includin
meet the
finding g digital
stakehol
s in firm
ders' Yes, A Yes, A Yes, A Yes, A
such a Via all exist to
needs. digital digital digital digital
way EoT Business meet
Do you firm firm firm firm
that element can the
think exists to exists to exists to exists to
you s, it can Do not Not sustain in stakehol
EoT can meet partly NA meet meet meet
leave meet Know Sure the long ders’
play a the the the the
room stakehol run using needs,
key role stakehol stakehol stakehol stakehol
for the ders EoT and so
in ders ders ders ders
stakeh needs EoT
meeting need need need need
olders can
stakehol
to feel plan an
ders
they importa
needs?
have nt role
Please
been in it.
explain
involv
how.
ed in
the
proces
s.
48. EoT Yes, agree. Agree. Agree. Agree. Sure,
can be EoT EoT can EoT EoT EoT EoT
impleme can be To be be can be can be can be can be
nted as a implem more impleme implem implem implem implem
Yes
holistic ented as successf nted as a ented as ented as ented as ented as
Not Agree,
approac a ul in holistic a a a a
sure Business
h and holistic EoT, it approach holistic holistic holistic holistic
about Do not Not can
covers approac should and NA approac approac approac approac
the Know Sure sustain in
the h and be covers h and h and h and h and
approa the long
entire covers implem the entire covers covers covers covers
ch run using
digital the ented as digital the the the the
EoT
firm entire End to firm end- entire entire entire entire
end-to- digital End to-end digital digital digital digital
end for firm for firm firm firm firm
business end-to- business end-to- end-to- end-to- end-to-
1.
nts ID
excellenc end for excellenc end for end for end for end for
e. Do you busines e busines busines busines busines
agree or s s s s s
disagree excellen excellen excellen excellen excellen
? Please ce ce ce ce ce.
explain.
Indeed
. To
deliver
more
value,
the People
human are
49. Do
resourc everythi
you Yes, yes, yes,
es The ng for
think EoT EoT EoT
functio yes, EoT process any
EoT framew framew framew
n framewo is the busines
framewo ork People ork ork
needs rk should driving process- s, and
rk needs should are the should should
to be more, approac driven so EoT
to be be main be be
spend people- Do not h, but it Not make framew
more, more, engine NA more, more,
more focused Know should Sure business ork
people- people- all people- people-
time instead focus people- should
focused focused everythi focused focused
acceler of on the focused be more
instead instead ng instead instead
ating process- people people-
of of of of
operati driven capabili focused
process- process- process- process-
onal ty instead
driven? driven driven driven
improv of
Why?
ement process-
and driven.
less
time
on its
traditio
nal
1.
nts ID
admini
strative
and
compli
ance
activiti
es
The
process
50. Do should
you yes, yes, come
think EoT EoT just
yes, EoT
EoT We framew framew after
This framewo
framewo The should ork ork process- people,
questio rk should
rk needs process adopt should should driven and so
n be more‚
to be more is the be be make EoT
needs process-
more‚ focused implem Do not technol more‚ more‚ Not business framew
further driven NA
process- on the ented Know ogy to process- process- Sure latest ork
investi than
driven process over do driven driven technolog should
gation latest
than technol process than than y driven be more
to technolo
latest ogy. automat latest latest as natural process-
explain gy
technolo ion technol technol driven
driven
gy ogy ogy than
driven? driven driven latest
Why? technol
ogy
driven
1.
nts ID
strong
51. Do
commit
you Strongl
Yes, Yes, yes, ment
think y agree.
strong The strong strong and
strong k strong
commit distrib yes, commit commit support
commit commit Yes
ment ution strong ment ment from
ment ment agree,
and of commit and and the
and and without
support strong Sure. ment and support support board
support support senior
required commi Manage support required required or
required required managem
from tment ment required from from senior
from the from ent or
the and support from the the the manage
board or the board
board suppor works board or Do not board board Not ment
senior NA board strong
or t like senior Know or or Sure can
manage or commitm
senior should bible manage senior senior positive
ment for senior ent it is
manage be verse in ment for manage manage ly
impleme manage not
ment decentr corporat impleme ment ment change
nting ment possible
for alized e. nting for for the
EoT in for to
implem for EoT in implem implem picture
digital implem implemen
enting imple digital enting enting for
firms? enting t
EoT in mentin firm EoT in EoT in implem
Please EoT in
digital g EoT digital digital enting
explain digital
firm firm firm EoT in
why or firm
digital
why not?
firms
Open
and
transpa open
52. Do rent and
you Yes, we are Yes, we Yes, we transpar
Yes, we Yes,
require require contra Yes. All require require ent
Open require without
open and open dictory stakehol open open commu
commu open and transpare
transpar and in der and and nication
nication transpare ncy
ent transpar nature. should transpar transpar for EoT
encoura nt Do not Not synergy
commun ent There NA also ent ent implem
ges communi Know Sure will not
ication commu should underst commu commu entation
people cation be able to
for EoT nication always and this nication nication is
to speak for EoT create to
impleme for EoT be necessit for EoT for EoT mandat
up impleme drive the
ntation? implem transpa y implem implem ory to
ntation business
Why or entation rency, entation entation get
why not? but doers
open is support.
conditi
onal.
1.
nts ID
Depen
ds on
perspe
ctive
view.
53. Do
you Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, sure,
think secured secured secured secured secured
secured computi computi computi computi computi
computi ng, ng, ng, ng, ng,
ng, senior senior senior senior senior
senior manage manage manage manage manage
manage ment ment ment ment rs
Yes.
ment involve involve involve involve Yes, involve
Becaus
involvem ment, Sure. ment, ment, ment, without ment
e these
ent, and and That is and and and this it is and
are Do not Not
organiza organiz the no NA organiz organiz organiz not organiz
funda Know Sure
tion- ation- prerequi ation- ation- ation- possible ation-
mental
wide wide site wide wide wide to come wide
assum
digital informa informa informa informa true informa
ptions.
transfor tion tion tion tion tion
mation awarene awarene awarene awarene awarene
are press are ss are ss are ss are ss are
requisite pre- pre- pre- pre- pre-
s of requisit requisit requisit requisit requisit
EoT? es of es of es of es of es of
Please EoT EoT EoT EoT EoT
explain.
1.
nts ID
54. CoT,
Strongl
LoT and Yes, I agree. agree. Agreed.
y agree,
DoT CoT, CoT, CoT, CoT,
Yes, CoT,
have to LoT LoT LoT LoT
CoT, LoT
be and and and and
LoT and and
integrate DoT DoT DoT DoT
DoT DoT
d in such should They should should should
should should
a way be should be be be
be be
that they integrat Yes, integrat integrat integrat integrat
integrate integrat
all can ed in strongl e and Do not ed in ed in Not I fully ed in
d in such NA ed in
add such a y work Know such a such a Sure agree such a
a way such a
value to way agreed. like a 3- way way way
that they way
the that lag that that that
all can that
business. they all table they all they all they all
add they all
To what can add can add can add can add
value to can add
extent do value to value to value to value to
the value to
you the the the the
business the
agree or busines busines busines busines
busines
disagree s s s s
s
?
Surely,
EoT
can
support
55. EoT digital
can Yes, Agree. I agree. Agree. transfor
EoT Yes, it
support EoT yak. EoT EoT EoT mation
should will drive
digital can EoT can can can can in
be all the
transfor support support support support support busines
Not everyon force to
mation digital digital Do not digital digital digital Not s as it
everyb e NA have
in transfor transfor Know transfor transfor transfor Sure takes
ody. busines digital
business. mation mation mation mation mation care of
s to be transform
Do you in in in in in all vital
successf ation
agree or busines business busines busines busines factors
ul. journey
disagree s s s s such as
? Why? people,
process
and
technol
ogy.
APPENDIX F: INFORMED CONSENT FORM (To Expert Panel)
Dear Experts:
Greetings.
I really appreciate your participation in your busy schedule. Please note that
your identity and responses shall be fully anonymous that shall neither be shared
with your organization nor your manager nor be utilized for any other commercial
purposes.
You might be aware of that I started my Ph.D./DBA (Doctorate in Business
Administration) concentrating on Information Management under Apollos University,
Montana, USA in last April 2015. After finishing all of research/ coursework, now I am
at the final stage of writing a dissertation on “Digital Transformation framework:
Excellence of Things (EoT) for Business Excellence”. I have chosen “Delphi”
Qualitative methodology for my research, and this survey is part of my Ph.D. research.
Based on your valued feedback this survey will design, analyzed and then a model will
possibly be developed.
Please be informed that Delphi qualitative research requires 2-3 rounds of
your feedback. After brainstorming, the questionnaire has been DRAFTED - that
needs your review. Please fill free to grade each of the questions regarding
understandability or relevancy in the research. You are also requested to rephrase

(in the comments box) if you see any ambiguity in any of the questions. I might
resend it for your ‘final review’ after correction based on the entire panel feedback.
I will be genuinely grateful if you answer all of the questions very honestly.
Thanks for your time, effort and cooperation,
With regards
Mahsud
(Syed Mahsud Ali)
Enrolment# s1503m0003
PhD/ DBA Research Student
Apollos University
Montana, USA
www.Apollos.edu
APPENDIX G: INFORMED CONSENT FORM (To Participants)
Dear Participants:
Greetings.
I really appreciate your participation in your busy schedule. Please note that your
identity and responses shall be entirely anonymous that shall neither be shared with your
organization nor your manager nor be utilized for any other commercial purposes.
You might be aware of that I started my Ph.D./DBA (Doctorate in Business
Administration) concentrating on Information Management under Apollos University,
Montana, USA in last April 2015. After finishing all of research/ coursework, now I am
at the final stage of writing a dissertation on “Digital Transformation framework:
Excellence of Things (EoT) for Business Excellence”.
I have chosen “Delphi” Qualitative methodology for my research, and this survey
is part of my Ph.D. research. Based on your valued feedback this survey will design,
analyzed and then a model will possibly be developed.
I will be really grateful if you answer all of the questions very honestly.
Thanks for your time, effort and cooperation,

With regards
Mahsud
(Syed Mahsud Ali)
Enrollment# s1503m0003
PhD/ DBA Research Student
Apollos University
Montana, USA
www.Apollos.edu

Dissertation Digital Transformation Framework - Excellence of Things (EOT) For Business Excellence

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK: EXCELLENCE OF THINGS (EoT)

FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

Syed Mahsud Ali

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfilment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Business Administration

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The entire digital ecosystem is disrupted due to disruptive innovation. Digital

I wish to dedicate my dissertation to my father – Mr. Syed Mokbor Ali who

Anwara Begum – who used to guide me throughout my student life.

Certainly, my beloved wife – Nargis Sultana - who enormously encouraged me to

for our family and let me finish my dissertation.

always gave me a chance to study and encouraged me to finish it!

General Education, Bangladesh Islamic University – who inspired and advised me

throughout the dissertation writing process.

Chowdhury (Manager, IT at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, USA), Mr. Anamul

Manager, IT Governance at BRAC IT Services Limited, Bangladesh), Mr. Faisal Islam

IT at Incepta Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bangladesh), Mr. Istiaq Ahmad (IT Officer at

Petroleum, Afghanistan) Mr. M Shohag Ahmed (Senior Audit Associate at KPMG

Motashim Billah (InfoSec Specialist, Contessa Solutions & Consultants Limited,

I am honestly grateful to all of them for their outstanding cooperation.

Table 1: Analog to Digital Changes...................................................................................39

Table 2: Core Theme of BE frameworks with EoT’s enablers:.........................................81

Table 3: COBIT framework with EoT’s enablers..............................................................84

Table 4: EoT in digital firm .............................................................................................104

Table 5: BE frameworks, COBIT, CoT, LoT and DoT Mapping....................................150

Table 6: Detail of Tailor Transformative Focus Area .....................................................156

Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy theory approach in Digital Transformation .........................3

Figure 2: Berman’s Digital Transformation Paths.............................................................10

Figure 4: Core BE Frameworks' Number of Award Winners .............................................7

Figure 5: Comparison of core BE Frameworks, COBIT and EoT enablers ........................8

Figure 6: Deming’s Chain Reaction (Ionica et al., 2010) ..................................................32

Figure 7: Digital Transformation Journey (Bongiorno et al., 2018)..................................38

Figure 8: Porter’s Digital Value Chain ..............................................................................15

Figure 9: Gartner Hype Cycle 2018...................................................................................44

Figure 10: Wade’s Categories of Digital Business Transformation Models .....................46

Figure 11: Gartner’s Rebalancing Technology Portfolio...................................................49

Figure 12: Information value Cycle throughout an Organization (Ladley, 2010).............57

Figure 13: Bytheway’s Information Management Body of Knowledge (IMBOK) ..........58

Figure 14: Ironic’s Business Excellence Transformation....................................................9

Figure 15: McKensey’s Digitalization and Productivity ...................................................71

Figure 16: KPMG’s Key IT Capabilities for BT ...............................................................76

Figure 18: Education Level of Panel .................................................................................91

Figure 19: Discipline of Panel ...........................................................................................91

Figure 20: Position of the Panel.........................................................................................92

Figure 21: Industry of the Panel.........................................................................................92

Figure 22: Education Level of Participants .......................................................................93

Figure 24: Position of the Participants...............................................................................94

Figure 25: Industry of the Participants...............................................................................94

Figure 26: Meaning of Digital Firm in Word Cloud........................................................102

Figure 27: Elements of Digital firms ...............................................................................102

Figure 28: Utilization of Business Applications in Digital Firms ...................................103

Figure 29: Drivers of EoT in Word Cloud.......................................................................107

Figure 30: Drivers of EoT................................................................................................107

Figure 31: Relationship of EoT Drivers and Enablers.....................................................109

Figure 32: Transformative Focus areas of CoT in Word Cloud ......................................110

Figure 33: Elements of CoT.............................................................................................111

Figure 34: Relationship of CoT Elements .......................................................................112

Figure 35: Elements of LoT in Word Cloud....................................................................114

Figure 36: Elements of LoT.............................................................................................114

Figure 37: Relationship of LoT Elements........................................................................116

Figure 38: Elements of DoT in Word Cloud ...................................................................118

Figure 39: Elements of DoT ............................................................................................118